The effect on Poissan was terrible. He advanced toward Kennedy,
the veins in his face fairly standing out. Shaking his
forefinger, he shouted: "You know that, do you? You are no
professor, and this is no banker. You are spies, spies. You come
from the friends of Morowitch, do you? You have gone too far with
me."

Kennedy said nothing, but retreated and took his coat and hat off
the window ledge. The hideous penetrating light of the tongues of
flame from the furnace played on the ground-glass window.

Poissan laughed a hollow laugh.

"Put down your hat and coat, Mistair Kennedy," he hissed. "The
door has been locked ever since you have been here. Those windows
are barred, the telephone wire is cut, and it is three hundred
feet to the street. We shall leave you here when the fumes have
overcome you. Francois and I can stand them up to a point, and
when we reach that point we are going."

Instead of being cowed Kennedy grew bolder, though I, for my
part, felt so weakened that I feared the outcome of a
hand-to-hand encounter with either Poissan or Francois, who
appeared as fresh as if nothing had happened. They were hurriedly
preparing to leave us.


"That would do you no good," Kennedy rejoined, "for we have no
safe full of jewels for you to rob. There are no keys to offices