he neighbourhood--which has fallen
for it like this sort of one-horse hole-in-the-corner place would! Fifty
pounds? What say you?"

He glowered round upon each of them in turn, his sneering lips showing
the pointed dogs' teeth behind them, his whole arrogant personality
brutally awake. "Who'll take it on? You Merriton? Fifty pounds, man,
that I don't get back safely and report to you chaps at twelve o'clock
to-night."

Merriton's flushed face went a shade or two redder, and he took an
involuntary step forward. It was only the doctor's fingers upon his
coat-sleeve that restrained him. Then, too, he felt some anxiety that
this drunken fool should attempt to do the very thing which another
drunken fool had attempted three months back. He couldn't bet on another
man's chance of life, like he would on a race-horse!

"You'll be a fool if you go, Wynne," he said, as quietly as his
excitement would permit. "As my guest I ask you not to. The thing may be
all rubbish--possibly is--but I'd rather you took no chances. Who it is
that hides out there and kills his victims or smuggles them away I don't
know, but I'd rather you didn't, old chap. And I'm not betting on a
fellow's life. Have another drink man, and forget all about it."

Wynne took this creditable effort at reconciliation with a harsh guffaw.
He crossed to Nigel and put his big, heavy hands upon the slim shoulders,
bending his flushed face down so that the eyes of both were almost upon a
level.

"You little, white-livered sneak," he said in a deep rumbling voice that
was like thunder in the still room. "Pull yourself together and try to be
a man. Take on the bet or not, whichever you like. You're savin' up for
the housekeepin' I suppose. Well, take it or leave it--fifty pounds that
I get back safe in this house to-night. Are you on?"

Merriton's teeth bit into his lips until the blood came in the effort at
repression. He shook Wynne's hands off his shoulders and laughed straight
into the other man's sneering face.

"Well then go--and be damned to you!" he said fiercely. "And blame your
drunken wits if you come to grief. I've done my best to dissuade you. If
you were less drunk I'd square the thing up and fight you. But I'm on,
all right. Fifty pounds that you don't get back here--though I'm decent
enough to hope I'll have to pay it. That satisfy you?"

"All right." Wynne straightened himself, took an unsteady step forward
toward the door, and it was then that the