“You’ll go and look for him,” interrupted the other, with a sneer.
“Don’t be a fool. How could I find him in this confounded city?”
He snapped open his watch and added, abruptly:
“Almost seven. Confound it! what can be keeping him?”
“Probably had trouble finishing---- What’s the matter?”
The other had banged the table with his clinched fist.
“Shut up, will you?” he snarled. “Haven’t you any sense, talking like that? Do you want to get us--us hanged? People may be listening. It isn’t so anyway. Nothing was to be done except giving--except giving Far--him a scare.”
Chris Spendly slowly sent a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. He smiled grimly. “We won’t argue that question, Judson,” he drawled. “But when you cough up fifty dollars and promise fifty more, it’s not for the purpose of giving people a scare. And that’s true enough.”
Before his companion could reply there was a sound at a door leading to the rear yard. Both sprang to their feet, Judson white-faced and trembling.
A lithe, sinewy, barefooted lad hurriedly entered the room. He was breathing heavily, and his face was mottled white as if from deadly fear.
He tried to speak, but before the words could form themselves an interruption came in the shape of a loud knock at the door opening into the bar.
With a gasping cry, the lad vanished in the direction whence he had come. The cry was echoed by Judson, who stood cowering near the table.
“We are suspected,” he moaned. “It has been done, and they are after----”
“Stop that, you fool!” grated Spendly. “How can they suspect us?”
He strode to the door and fumbled at the key unsteadily. He was pale, but there was desperate determination written in his face.
At last the lock yielded and the door flung open revealing--the man in charge of the place.
“You want more drink?” he asked, in broken English, bowing humbly.
“No!” snarled Chris, tossing him a piece of money.
“Come on,” he added to Judson. “It’s time we were at the dock.”
They had presence of mind enough to saunter forth leisurely, but once free of the ill-favored resort they quickened their steps almost to a run.
“It won’t do for you to be seen looking like that,” exclaimed Spendly, roughly, passing under a street lamp. “Brace up, you fool. You would give yourself away to a blind man.”