About what happened next I shall always be a bit confused. I recollect seeing a man in front of me—a big, dark fellow, his face wild with amazement and terror, his hand grabbing the back of the chair from which he had just started up. Then I suppose I must have flung my spanner, for his face seemed suddenly to double up, and he went backwards across the table with an ear-splitting shriek. As I leaped forward, I had a swift inspiring vision of Billy battering somebody's head against the wall, and the next thing I knew was that I was kneeling on the floor with a moaning, bloodstained object writhing feebly in my grip.
A few quick turns of the cord which I had whipped out of my pocket, and I rose to my feet again, panting and exultant.
Billy's voice, cheerful and cool as ever, rang out across the room.
"Well done, Jack! Now come and give us a hand with this lot."
He was in the farther corner, sitting comfortably astride of a furiously agitated mass of arms and legs, from which proceeded an unintelligible smother of Spanish and English blasphemy. He looked up smiling as I strode across.
"Get hold of that off leg, old son, will you?" he added. "Take care he doesn't bite: he's very peevish."
A brief scuffle, and our second captive was as trussed and helpless as the other.
Billy jumped up with a laugh. "Good work that," he said, "devilish good!" Then he walked across to where I had left my prisoner. "I say," he added, "you've put it across old Dot-and-carry-one all right. Spoilt his beauty for keeps from the look of it."
I picked up my discarded spanner.
"I'll leave you here, Billy," I said. "I'm off to find Mercia."