"Of course it was," Laurie admitted, in his gayest voice. "It was the climax of the hoax you have played on me. An hour ago Shaw confessed to me how you three arranged this whole plot of Miss Mayo's adventure, so that I should be kept out of mischief and should think I was having an adventure myself. I thought a little excitement was due you in return. How do you like my climax, anyhow? Pretty fair, I call it." He stopped short. Rodney had loosened his grip on his shoulders and stumbled to a chair. Now, his arm on its back and his head on his arm, his body shook with the relentless convulsion of a complete nervous collapse. Epstein had produced a handkerchief and was feebly wiping his forehead. Doris seemed to have ceased to breathe. Laurie walked over to her, took her hands, and drew them away from her face. Even yet, she seemed not to understand. "I'm sorry," he said, very gently. "I've given you three an awful jolt. But I think you will all admit that there was something coming to you. You've put me through a pretty bad week. I decided you could endure half an hour of reprisal." None of the three answered. None of the three could. But, in the incandescent moments that followed, the face of Epstein brightened slowly, like a moon emerging from black clouds. Bangs alone, who had best borne the situation up till now, was unable to meet the reaction. In the silence of the little studio he wept on, openly and gulpingly and unrestrainedly, as he had not wept since he was a little boy. CHAPTER XVIII A LITTLE LOOK FORWARD "So Shaw told you!" muttered Epstein a few moments later. "You bet he did!" Laurie blithely corroborated. "He had to, to save his skin. But he was pretty game, I'll give him credit for that. I had to fire one shot past his head to convince him that I meant business. Besides, as I've said, I thought he was reaching for something. I suppose I was a little nervous. Anyway, we clenched again, and--well--I'd have killed him, I guess, if he hadn't spoken." He smiled reminiscently. All three were tactfully ignoring Bangs, who had walked over to the window and by the exercise of all his will-power was now getting his nerves under control. "Shaw didn't do the tale justice, he hadn't time to," Laurie continued, "and I was in such a hurry to get back to Miss Mayo that I didn't ask for many details. But on the way to the garage it occurred to me that I had a chance for a come-back that would keep you three from feeling too smug and happy over the way I had gulped down your little plot. So I planned it, and I rather think," he added complacently, "that I put it over." "Put it over!" groaned Epstein. "Mein Gott, I should think you did put it over! You took twenty years off my life, young man; that's von sure thing." He spoke with feeling, and his appearance bore out his words. Even in these moments of immense relief he looked years older than when he entered the room.