"
The two men eyed each other steadily, the older seeming to weigh the
possible truth of Holcombe's last words in his mind. Holcombe broke
the silence in a lighter tone.
"Playing the policeman is a new role to me," he said, "and I warn you
that I have but little patience; and, besides, my hand is getting
tired, and this thing is at full cock."
Allen, for the first time, lowered the box upon the table and drew
from it a bundle of notes bound together with elastic bandages.
Holcombe's eyes lighted as brightly at the sight as though the notes
were for his own private pleasures in the future.
"Be quick!" he said. "I cannot be responsible for the men outside."
Allen bent over the money, his face drawing into closer and sharper
lines as the amount grew, under his fingers, to the sum Holcombe had
demanded.
"Sixty thousand!" he said, in a voice of desperate calm.
"Good!" whispered Holcombe. "Pass it over to me. I hope I have taken
the most of what you have," he said, as he shoved the notes into his
pocket; "but this is something. Now I warn you," he added, as he
lowered the trigger of the revolver and put it out of sight, "that any
attempt to regain this will be futile. I am surrounded by friends; no
one knows you or cares about you. I shall sleep in my room to-night
without precaution, for I know that the money is now mine. Nothing you
can do will recall it. Your cue is silence and secrecy as to what you
have lost and as to what you still have with you.
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