“I’ll talk when you open that door,” said Johnny quietly. “And I’ll put away my gun on the same condition.”
In three strides, Emanuel was at the door. There was a jerk of his wrist, and it flew open.
“Have the door open if you’re frightened,” he said contemptuously. “I guess it’s being in boob that makes you scared of the dark. I got that way myself.”
As he had turned the handle, Johnny had heard a second click. He was confident that somebody stood outside the door, and that the words Legge had uttered were intended for the unknown sentry. What was the idea?
Peter Kane was sipping his champagne, with an eye on his host. Had he heard the noise, too? Johnny judged that he had. The extinguishing of the lights had not been an accident. Some secret signal had been given, and the lights cut off from the controlling switchboard. The doors of the buffet cupboard were still. Turning his head, Johnny saw that Jeffrey’s eyes were fixed on his with a hard concentration which was significant. What was he expecting?
The climax, whatever it might be, was at hand.
“It’s a wonder to me, Gray, that you’ve never gone in for slush.” Jeffrey was speaking slowly and deliberately. “It’s a good profession, and you can make money that you couldn’t dream of getting by faking racehorses.”
“Perhaps you will tell me how to start in that interesting profession,” said Johnny coolly.
“I’ll put it on paper for you, if you like. It’ll be easier to make a squeak about. Or, better still, I’ll show you how it’s done. You’d like that?”
“I don’t know that I’m particularly interested, but I’m sure my friend Mr. Reeder—”
“Your friend Mr. Reeder!” sneered the other. “He’s a pal of yours too, is he?”
“All law-abiding citizens are pals of mine,” said Johnny gravely.
He had put his pistol back in his jacket pocket, and his hand was on it.
“Well, how’s this for a start?”
Jeffrey rose from the table and went to the buffet. He bent down and must have touched some piece of mechanism; for, without any visible assistance, the lid of the buffet turned over on some invisible axis, revealing a small but highly complicated piece of machinery, which Johnny recognised instantly as one of those little presses employed by banknote printers when a limited series of notes, generally of a high denomination, were being made.
The audacity of this revelation momentarily took his breath away.
“You could pull that buffet to pieces,” continued Jeffrey, “and then not find it.”
He pressed a switch, and the largest of the wheels began to spin, and with it a dozen tiny platens and cylinders. Only for a few minutes, and then he cut off the current, pressed the hidden mechanism again, and the machine turned over out of sight, and the two astonished men stared at the very ordinary looking surface of a very ordinary buffet.
“Easy money, eh, Gray?” said Emanuel, with an admiring smirk at his son. “Now listen, boys,” His tone grew suddenly practical and businesslike as he came back to his chair. “I want to tell you something that’s going to be a lot of good to both of you, and we’ll leave Marney out of it for the time being.”
Johnny raised his glass of water, still watchful and suspicious.
“The point is—” said Emanuel, and at that moment Johnny took a long sip from the glass.
The liquid had hardly reached his throat when he strove vainly to reject it. The harsh tang of it he recognised, and, flinging the glass to the floor, jerked out his gun.
And then some tremendous force within him jerked at his brain, and the pistol dropped from his paralysed hand.
Peter was on his feet, staring from one to the other.
“What have you done?”
He leapt forward, but before he could make a move, Emanuel sprang at him like a cat. He tried to fight clear, but he was curiously lethargic and weak. A vicious fist struck him on the jaw, and he went down like a log.
“Got you!” hissed Emanuel, glaring down at his enemy. “Got you, Peter, my boy! Never been in boob, have you? I’ll give you a taste of it!”
Jeffrey Legge stooped and jerked open the door of the cupboard, and a man came stooping into the light. It was a catlike Pietro, grinning from ear to ear in sheer enjoyment of the part he had played. Emanuel dropped his hand on his shoulder.
“Good boy,” he said. “The right stuff for the right man, eh? To every man his dope, Jeff. I knew that this Johnny Gray was going to be the hardest, and if I’d taken your advice and given them both a knockout, we’d have only knocked out one. Now they know why the lights went out. Pick ’em up.”
The little half-caste must have been enormously strong, for he lifted Peter without an effort and propped him into an armchair. This done, he picked up the younger man and laid him on the sofa, took a little tin box from his pocket, and, filling a hypodermic syringe from a tiny phial, looked round for instructions.
Jeffrey nodded, and the needle was driven into the unfeeling flesh. This done, he lifted the eyelid of the drugged man and grinned again.
“He’ll be ready to move in half an hour,” he said. “My knockout doesn’t last longer.”
“Could you get him down the fire-escape into the yard?” asked Emanuel anxiously. “He’s a pretty heavy fellow, that Peter. You’ll have to help him, Jeff boy. The car’s in the yard. And, Jeff, don’t forget you’ve an engagement at two o’clock.”
His son nodded.
Again the half-caste
