The man nodded and came slowly forward. He might have been considered handsome, had it not been for his thin, mocking lips and a swarthy complexion.
"What are you doing here?" demanded Guinness angrily. "And what do you mean—'it was a gun?' Have you—"
"Easy, easy—one thing at a time," said Quade, still smiling. "About the gun—well, your young friend Holmes said, he'd be right back, but I—I'm afraid he won't be."
ue Guinness's lips formed a frightened word:
"Why?"
Quade made a short movement with his left hand, as is brushing the query aside. "Let's talk about something more pleasant," he said, and looked back at the professor. "The radium, and your borer, for instance. I hear you're all ready to go down."
David Guinness gasped. "How did you know—?" he began, but a surge of anger choked him, and his fists clenched. He stepped forward. But something came to life in James Quade's right hand and pointed menacingly at him. It was the stubby black shape of an automatic.
"Keep back, you old fool!" Quade said harshly. "I don't want to have to shoot you!"