“Frisk him,” the harsh voice came from behind.
The old man carefully laid his cigar down, came to me, and ran his hands over my body. Satisfied that I was unarmed, he emptied my pockets, dropping the contents upon the chair that I had just left.
Mrs. Quarre was pouring herself some more tea.
“Thomas,” she said; “you’ve overlooked that little watch pocket in the trousers.”
He found nothing there.
“That’s all,” he told the man behind me, and returned to his chair and cigar.
“Turn around, you!” the harsh voice ordered.
I turned and faced a tall, gaunt, rawboned man of about my own age, which is thirty-five. He had an ugly face—hollow-cheeked, bony, and spattered with big pale freckles. His eyes were of a watery blue, and his nose and chin stuck out abruptly.
“Know me?” he asked.
“No.”
“You’re a liar!”
I didn’t argue the point: he was holding a level gun in one big freckled hand.
“You’re going to know me pretty well before you’re through with me,” this big ugly man threatened. “You’re going to—”
“Hook!” a voice came from a portièred doorway—the doorway through which the ugly man had no doubt crept up behind me. “Hook, come