"I beg your pardon, Mr. Sedgwick. Were there time I would give you satisfaction for that blow in the customary manner. But time presses. I shall have to ask you instead to accept my apologies. I have the devil of a temper."
"So I judge."
"It flares like powder. But I must not waste your time in explanations." From his vest pocket he drew three little cubes of iron. "You still have time, Mr, Sedgwick. The map!"
I flushed to the roots of my hair.
"Never, you Russian devil!"
He selected the hand pinned down by Fleming, perhaps because he was not sure that he could trust Gallagher. Between my fingers close to the roots he slipped the cubes. His fingers fastened over mine and drew the ends of them together slowly, steadily.
An excruciating pain shot through me. I set my teeth to keep from screaming and closed my eyes to hide the anguish in them.
"You are at liberty to change your mind—and your answer, Mr. Sedgwick," he announced suavely.
"You devil from hell!"
Again I suffered that jagged bolt of pain. It seemed as if my fingers were being rent asunder at the roots. I could not concentrate my attention on anything but the physical agony, yet it seems to me now that Gallagher was muttering a protest across the table.