"_Pardong, musseer, permitty vous moi de fumy ung cigar?_"

"_Mais comment, donc, monsieur! Je vous en prie----_"

"He says politely," translated Doc, "that we can smoke and be d.a.m.ned to us."

They lighted three obese cigars; Neeland, his eyes on his page, listened attentively and stole a glance at the man they called Brandes.

So this was the scoundrel who had attempted to deceive the young girl who had come to him that night in his studio, bewildered with what she believed to be her hopeless disgrace!

This was the man--this short, square, round-faced individual with his minutely shaven face and slow greenish eyes, and his hair combed back and still reeking with perfumed tonic--this shiny, scented, and overgroomed sport with rings on his fat, blunt fingers and the silk laces on his tan oxfords as fastidiously tied as though a valet had done it!

Ben Stull began to speak; and presently Neeland discovered that the fox-faced man's name was Doc Curfoot; that he had just arrived from London on receipt of a telegram from them; and that they themselves had landed the night before from a transatlantic liner to await him here.

Doc Curfoot checked the conversation, which was becoming general now, saying that they'd better be very sure that the man opposite understood no English before they became careless.

"_Musseer_," he added suavely to Neeland, who looked up with a polite smile, "_parly voo Anglay_?"

"_Je parle Francais, monsieur._"

"I get him," said Stull, sourly. "I knew it anyway. He's got the sissy manners of a Frenchy, even if he don't look the part. No white man tips his lid to n.o.body except a swell skirt."

"I seen two dudes do it to each other on Fifth Avenue," remarked Curfoot, and spat from the window.

Brandes, imperturbable, rolled his cigar into the corner of his mouth and screwed his greenish eyes to narrow slits.

"You got our wire, Doc?"

"Why am I here if I didn't!"

"Sure. Have an easy pa.s.sage?"

Doc Curfoot's foxy visage still wore traces of the greenish pallor; he looked pityingly at Brandes--_self_-pityingly:

"Say, Eddie, that was the worst I ever seen. A freight boat, too. G.o.d!

I was that sick I hoped she'd turn turtle! And nab it from me; if you hadn't wired me S O S, I'd have waited over for the steamer train and the regular boat!"

"Well, it's S O S all right, Doc. I got a cable from Quint this morning saying our place in Paris is ready, and we're to be there and open up tonight----"

"_What_ place?" demanded Curfoot.

"Sure, I forgot. You don't know anything yet, do you?"

"Eddie," interrupted Stull, "let me do the talking _this_ time, if _you_ please."

And, to Curfoot:

"Listen, Doc. We was up against it. You heard. Every little thing has went wrong since Eddie done what he done--every d.a.m.n thing! Look what's happened since Maxy Venem got sore and he and Minna started out to get him! Morris Stein takes away the Silhouette Theatre from us and we can't get no time for 'Lilith' on Broadway. We go on the road and bust. All our Saratoga winnings goes, also what we got invested with Parson Smawley when the bulls pulled Quint's----!"

"Ah, f'r the lov' o' Mike!" began Brandes. "Can that stuff!"

"All right, Eddie. I'm tellin' Doc, that's all. I ain't aiming to be no c.r.a.pe-hanger; I only want you both to listen to me _this_ time. If _you'd_ listened to me before, we'd have been in Saratoga today in our own machines. But no; you done what you done--G.o.d! Did anyone ever hear of such a thing!--taking chances with that little rube from Brookhollow--that freckled-faced mill-hand--that yap-skirt! And Minna and Max having you watched all the time! You big b.o.o.b! No--don't interrupt! Listen to _me_! Where are you now? You had good money; you had a theaytre, you had backing! Quint was doing elegant; Doc and Parson and you and me had it all our way and comin' faster every day.

Wait, I tell you! This ain't a autopsy. This is business. I'm tellin'

you two guys all this becuz I want you to realise that what Eddie done was against my advice. Come on, now; wasn't it?"

"It sure was," admitted Curfoot, removing his cigar from his lean, pointed visage of a greyhound, and squinting thoughtfully at the smoke eddying in the draught from the open window.

"Am I right, Eddie?" demanded Stull, fixing his black, smeary eyes on Brandes.

"Well, go on," returned the latter between thin lips that scarcely moved.

"All right, then. Here's the situation, Doc. We're broke. If Quint hadn't staked us to this here new game we're playin', where'd we be, I ask you?

"We got no income now. Quint's is shut up; Maxy Venem and Minna Minti fixed us at Saratoga so we can't go back there for a while. They won't let us touch a card on the liners. Every pug is leery of us since Eddie flimflammed that Battling Smoke; and I told you he'd holler, too! Didn't I?" turning on Brandes, who merely let his slow eyes rest on him without replying.

"Go on, Ben," said Curfoot.

"I'm going on. We guys gotta do something----"

"We ought to have fixed Max Venem," said Curfoot coolly.

There was a silence; all three men glanced stealthily at Neeland, who quietly turned the page of his book as though absorbed in his story.

"That squealer, Max," continued Curfoot with placid ferocity blazing in his eyes, "ought to have been put away. Quint and Parson wanted us to have it done. Was it any stunt to get that dirty little shyster in some roadhouse last May?"

Brandes said:

"I'm not mixing with any gunmen after the Rosenthal business."

"Becuz a lot of squealers done a amateur job like that, does it say that a honest job can't be pulled?" demanded Curfoot. "Did Quint and me ask you to go to Dopey or Clabber or Pete the Wop, or any of them cheap gangsters?"

"Ah, can the gun-stuff," said Brandes. "I'm not for it. It's punk."

"What's punk?"

"Gun-play."

"Didn't you pull a pop on Maxy Venem the night him and Hyman Adams and Minna beat you up in front of the Knickerbocker?"

"Eddie was stalling," interrupted Stull, as Brandes' face turned a dull beef-red. "You talk like a bad actor, Doc. There's other ways of getting Max in wrong. Guns ain't what they was once. Gun-play is old stuff. But listen, now. Quint has staked us and we gotta make good.

And this is a big thing, though it looks like it was out of our line."

"Go on; what's the idea?" inquired Curfoot, interested.

Brandes, the dull red still staining his heavy face, watched the flying landscape from the open window.

Stull leaned forward; Curfoot bent his lean, narrow head nearer; Neeland, staring fixedly at his open book, p.r.i.c.ked up his ears.

"Now," said Stull in a low voice, "I'll tell you guys all Eddie and I know about this here business of Captain Quint's. It's like this, Doc: Some big feller comes to Quint after they close him up--he won't tell who--and puts up this here proposition: Quint is to open a elegant place in Paris on the Q. T. In fact, it's ready now. There'll be all the backing Quint needs. He's to send over three men he can trust--three men who can shoot at a pinch! He picks us three and stakes us. Get me?"