"I knew it!" he cried; "I knew the fellow was a scoundrel. What the
deuce do you think he has the impertinence to do now?"
"He!" Gladys said, looking anxiously at her father. "Whoever do you
mean?"
"Why, that confounded young bounder who came here last night--Leon
Hamar he signs himself. In this letter he declares that he can perform
any of our tricks, and will accept the wager I offered for their
solution some little time ago. He also says that unless I consent to
see him, and to listen courteously to what he has to say, he will
publicly announce his intention of taking up the wager, at our Hall,
in Kingsway, to-night."
"Do you think there is any possibility of his having discovered the
secrets of your tricks?" Gladys asked. "Could he have bribed any one
to tell him?"
"I don't think so," John Martin said. "The only people who have any
clue as to how they are done are my two attendants--both as you know
natives of Cashmere, and men who, I feel pretty certain, could not be
'got at.'"
"In that case," Gladys remarked, "I fail to see what there is to worry
about. Your course is perfectly clear--take no notice of it."
John Martin was silent--dazed. He did not know what to think or do!
There was something painfully ominous to him in the discovery of the
money and the water--something that accentuated the impression Hamar's
sinister appearance had made on him. The man did not look
ordinary--his manner, gestures, walk and expression were decidedly
abnormal--in fact they put him in mind of the superphysical.
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