“Quite a decent lot,” he remarked. “Old Levy will give us twenty thousand francs for them, if we pretend we’re not hard up. He went back to Amsterdam on Friday, but I’ll wire him later on, and get him over.”
“But we’re not hard up,” laughed “The Eel” with a grin of satisfaction.
“No—not quite,” answered his companion, taking off the india-rubber band from the bundle of notes and carefully counting them, one by one. There were seventy-five blue and pink notes of the Bank of France for one thousand francs each—or three thousand pounds, as well as the loose cash.
Ralph Ansell swallowed another glass of wine.
“I’m sorry we had such horribly bad luck with that safe,” he remarked. “But we were fortunate in getting away as we did. We were not a moment too soon, either.”
“They saw us cross the garden,” Adolphe said. “I don’t like being fired at.”
“By Jove! If I had met anyone he’d have gone down, I assure you,” declared Ralph. “I had my revolver ready.”
“A good job that we got out as we did. It is always a risky thing to try and get political papers. Remember the affair at the Austrian Ambassador’s, when a stranger offered poor Bonnemain twenty thousand francs to get certain documents? I kept watch outside the Embassy that night, and we were nearly caught—all of us.”
“Well—this is enough to keep the flag flying for a bit,” said Ansell, as he proceeded to divide the bank-notes, placing fifty in his own pocket and giving Adolphe twenty-five.