There was not a flaw or tremor in his voice to betray an uneasy mind or prescience of a coming storm. It was then, however, he realized that something was wrong, for he noticed that they were looking coldly at him. Slowly drawing himself up with a haughty bearing, he carefully adjusted the monocle in his left eye and turned slowly about as he stared at each of them, and said in slow, sharp, biting accents: "It's deuced--draughty--don't--che--know!" "Yes, quite chilly, isn't it, old chappie! I guess so!" declared Sam, patronizingly. "I demand, sir, the return of ten thousand dollars that you swindled me out of yesterday," said Mr. Harris, with indignation flushing his face. "And I demand, in the name of the law, ten thousand dollars that you stole from--a--George Golda, while in the scow-dwelling night before last," said Sam. Still unperturbed, Rutley merely shifted his eyes from one to the other without moving his head or a muscle of his body, much in the manner of an automaton, and answered with a drawl: "Aw, a money swindle! And a--a--theft of money from a scow-dwelling! Really, gentlemen, this is--a--a--a--deuced good joke!" And then he laughed, laughed in a shrill, screechy falsetto key, unnatural, and chilling as an icy breath from the Arctic. "This is no joke, sir, as you will soon realize." "You have been detected. Your villainy is exposed, and your damned rascality is at an end," said the irate Mr. Harris. "For twenty years in the pen at Salem, eh, old chappie!" said Sam, with a grin of satisfaction. "Curse the luck," muttered Rutley to himself. "What a fool I was not to have vanished last night. It's deuced ugly, don't-che know," he continued aloud, in the same cutting accents. "Let me warn you, gentlemen, there is a limit to one's forbearance!" "You are a cheat, a villain, an imposter!" fumed Mr. Harris. "And there is the proof," and he flourished the cablegram in Rutley's face. "You are imposing on the public under the cloak of an assumed title, and unless you immediately hand over to me ten thousand dollars I shall give you into custody." "Of the officers of the law, eh, Auntie?" and as Sam uttered the last words, up went his right hand extended straight with the index finger pointing aloft. It was the signal agreed upon for the officers to appear, and forthwith they emerged with Jack Shore between them, and Smith following, from a vine inclosed arbor, partially concealed by a group of trees a few rods down the hill. Pretending not to notice the approach of the officers and their prisoner, Sam grinned at Rutley and banteringly said: "Come now, own up, you intentionally put me 'out of business' with the automobile. But it was a bungled job, wasn't it, old chappie?" Rutley yielded not an iota of his haughty bearing. Totally unsuspecting the near approach of the officers from behind, he directed a frigid, steady, contemptuous stare at his accusers, and with an air of puzzled understanding, said: