"It was Rooke. I don't remember very clearly exactly what I did say, but I meant Rooke," he admitted. "You say he's taken Mrs. Cunningham home. He's coming back, I suppose?" With remarkable grimness Philip replied, "You bet he is." "You mean you told him to?" "Yes, and I told him to be pretty quick unless he wanted to drive me crazy. I said I'd give him time for dinner at the Parrakeet, though. I was waiting for him when you came in." "Then--well, to put it plainly, do you want us to clear off?" "No--at any rate wait a bit," he answered irresolutely. "I don't suppose he'll be long now." I don't know how much longer we should have continued to spar like this had not Hubbard suddenly put a question. He had evidently been thinking it over for some time, and he took care, with a preliminary "I say" and a pause, that he had Esdaile's attention before putting it. "I say," he said quietly, "about when you came up from below this morning. Why did you want to brush Rooke's clothes?" And that settled it. Esdaile began with one more "Did I?" but Hubbard did not let him finish. "Yes, you did," he cut him short. "It was the very first thing you did. And he jumped back when you tried to touch him. Why?" There was no further attempt at prevarication. Without even taking the trouble to rise, Esdaile pushed back the lamp, opened the upper drawer of the escritoire as he sat, and from the corner of it drew out and placed on the table a 7.65 mm. Webley and Scott automatic pistol. VIII Honestly, I don't know whether I was surprised or not. On the whole I hardly think I was. If he had produced another candlestick or jar of liqueur I think I should have felt like getting up and walking out; but here at last was something on the fuller scale. Thank heaven, we had done with broken glass and sweeping-brushes and dark blue linen blinds. We might now hope to get a little farther. For a pistol is a pistol at all times and all the world over. No other weapon has quite so exclusively sinister a meaning. Among the honorable swords and rifles of war it is a low and sneaking thing, and in peace-time an Apache's tool, something for the common garrotter to shoot through his pocket with. Its proper place was the Criminal Museum at Scotland Yard, not in a decent artist's studio. So Philip put the revolting thing on his desk, and for a moment we sat looking at its roughened grip, black as crape, and the glossy blackness of the rest of it. Then without a word Hubbard took it up, glanced at the safety-catch and slid back the breach. A cartridge lay ready in the chamber. Then he withdrew the magazine. Six nickel steel bullets showed through the perforations of the clip. The capacity of the W. & S. 7.65 is eight shots. One shot had therefore been fired. Hubbard replaced the pistol on the desk. "And where did _that_ come from?" he asked with pursed lips.