"You are talking nonsense. This is a respectable
hotel; it isn't a den of thieves. You are trying to frighten me out of
the money with your lies and your lawyer's tricks, but you will find
that I am not so easily fooled. You are dealing with a man, Holcombe,
who suffered to get what he has, and who doesn't mean to let it go
without a fight for it. Come near me, I warn you, and I shall call for
help."
Holcombe backed slowly away from the table and tossed up his hands
with the gesture of one who gives up his argument. "You will have it,
will you?" he muttered, grimly. "Very well, you _shall_ fight for
it." He turned quickly and drove in the bolt of the door and placed
his shoulders over the electric button in the wall. "I have warned
you," he said, softly. "I have told you where you are, and that you
have nothing to expect from the outside. You are absolutely in my
power to do with as I please." He stopped, and, without moving his
eyes from Allen's face, drew the revolver from the pocket of his coat.
His manner was so terrible that Allen gazed at him, breathing faintly,
and with his eyes fixed in horrible fascination. "There is no law,"
Holcombe repeated, softly. "There is no help for you now or later. It
is a question of two men locked in a room with a table and sixty
thousand dollars between them. That is the situation. Two men and
sixty thousand dollars. We have returned to first principles, Allen.
It is a man against a man, and there is no Court of Appeal.
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