“Four!” he said reluctantly.

There was a breathless moment.  Then, to Jimmy’s unspeakable relief, gun and torch dropped simultaneously to the floor.  In an instant Jimmy was himself again.

“Go and stand with your face to that wall,” he said crisply.  “Hold your hands up!”

“Why?”

“I’m going to see how many more guns you’ve got.”

“I haven’t another.”

“I’d like to make sure of that for myself.  Get moving!”

Gentleman Jack reluctantly obeyed.  When he had reached the wall, Jimmy came down.  He switched on the lights.  He felt in the other’s pockets, and almost at once encountered something hard and metallic.

He shook his head reproachfully.

“You are very loose and inaccurate in your statements,” he said. 
“Why all these weapons?  I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier! 
Now you can turn around and put your hands down.”

Gentleman Jack’s appeared to be a philosophical nature.  The chagrin consequent upon his failure seemed to have left him.  He sat on the arm of a chair and regarded Jimmy without apparent hostility.  He even smiled a faint smile.

“I thought I had fixed you, he said.  You must have been smarter than I took you for.  I never supposed you would get on to that drink and pass it up.”

Understanding of an incident which had perplexed him came to Jimmy.

“Was it you who put that high-ball in my room?  Was it doped?”

“Didn’t you know?”

“Well,” said Jimmy, “I never knew before that virtue got its reward so darned quick in this world.  I rejected that high-ball not because I suspected it but out of pure goodness, because I had made up my mind that I was through with all that sort of thing.”

His companion laughed.  If Jimmy had had a more intimate acquaintance with the resourceful individual whom the “boys” called Gentleman Jack, he would have been disquieted by that laugh.  It was an axiom among those who knew him well, that when Gentleman Jack chuckled in the reflective way, he generally had something unpleasant up his sleeve.

“It’s your lucky night,” said Gentleman Jack.

“It looks like it.”

“Well, it isn’t over yet.”

“Very nearly.  You had better go and put that test-tube back in what is left of the safe now.  Did you think I had forgotten it?”

“What test-tube?”

“Come, come, old friend!  The one filled with Partridge’s explosive, which you have in your breast-pocket.”

Gentleman Jack laughed again.  Then he moved towards the safe.

“Place it gently on the top shelf,” said Jimmy.

The next moment every nerve in his body was leaping and quivering.  A great shout split the air.  Gentleman Jack, apparently insane, was giving tongue at the top of his voice.

“Help!  Help!  Help!”