Harker had been fuming to himself over his partner’s enormous offer, but Pentecost, with a peculiar twist of his hand as he looked at his wrist watch, put it across to him that the game was so fixed they couldn’t lose. Harker’s experience with this same signal in former operations led him to infer that it didn’t matter what they paid, as they’d get it back. He took out his fountain pen and wrote into the contract the thirty-five thousand and the one-fifth share of profits. After both parties to the agreement had duly written their names, James Dreek was called in to sign as one witness, with Alfred Harker as the other, thus making the thing complete and duly executed. It was in duplicate—one copy for Haworth, the other for the firm. After the signing, with only a wait until Dreek had left the room, Mr. Harker, with some difficulty, got out the bunch of money from the document case and passed it over to Alfred. At the same time Pentecost approached the table, and saying, “There’s mine,” tossed a roll of bills on it. This payment in cash had been insisted on by Haworth from the very beginning. Alfred counted out the thirty-five thousand, which was in century notes, on the table. The separate piles of a thousand each were deftly stacked in one, and this was pushed nonchalantly across the table to Haworth. He fussed with it rather helplessly a moment. “Like to have ’em riffled again with the brakes on?” Alfred was an expert bill shifter and had snapped ’em off like the flutter of a humming bird’s wings. “Yes, please.” Haworth watched intently while the lightfingered youth dealt each bill off the pack so slowly and carefully that it could be seen and noted as it fell on the pile before him. When the recount was finished, Haworth muttered a “thank you,” and signed the receipt which Harker, mumbling something about its being “a cash transaction, you know,” pushed over to him. At that moment, Pentecost, turning from the money count, caught sight of James Dreek going through the swing door into the butler’s pantry at the farther end of the room. “How the hell did _he_ get here?” Pentecost demanded in a sharp, rasping whisper the instant the door swung to. “Who?” Haworth asked with a glance about. “That young butler of yours. He had his lamps on that stack of yellows on the table.” “You got him in yourself,” Haworth answered, “to sign as a witness.” “He went out again!” (Still in the guttural whisper.) “We waited for that before we slid the boodle out on the table.” “You said he was all right, didn’t you?” “All the same, you want to be a little careful with that bunch of money!” And he moved noiselessly to the door which had closed after Dreek’s exit, and listened with his ear close against it.