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-dress, was pointing immediately at my nose.
"There now," he purred. "I was going to say, 'Hands up.' Just like that. 'Hands up.' It's so romantic. But I hadn't expected the dog. Suppose you put your right hand up."
I shook my head.
"I want that for my cigarette," I said.
For a moment we stood looking at one another. Then my fat vis-à-vis began to shake with laughter.
"You know," he gurgled, "this is most irregular. It's enough to make Jack Sheppard turn in his grave. It is really. However.... As an inveterate smoker, I feel for you. So we'll have a compromise." He nodded towards an armchair which stood by the window. "You go and sit down in that extremely comfortable armchair--sit well back--and we won't say any more about the hands."
As he spoke, he stepped forward. Nobby received him with a venomous growl, and to my amazement the fellow immediately caressed him.
"Dogs always take to me," he added. "I'm sure I don't know why, but it's a great help."
To my mortification, the Sealyham proved to be no exception to the rule. I could feel his tail going.
As in a dream, I crossed to the chair and sat down. As I moved, the pistol moved also.
"I hate pointing this thing at you," said the late speaker. "It's so suggestive. If you'd care to give me your word, you know.... Between gentlemen...."
"I make no promises," I snapped.
The other sighed.
"Perhaps you're right," he said. "Lean well back, please.... That's better."
The consummate impudence of the rogue intensified the atmosphere of unreality, which was most distracting. Doggedly my bewildered brain was labouring in the midst of a litter of fiction, which had suddenly changed into truth. The impossible had come to pass. The cracksman of the novel had come to life, and I was reluctantly witnessing, in comparative comfort and at my own expense, an actual exhibition of felony enriched with all the spices which the cupboard of Sensation contains.
The m