Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/252

240 He finished making his cigarette before he replied—with an air of calling for a showdown—"What do you want?"

Fisher nodded. "I want you to interview a friend of mine."

"What about?"

"I want you to ask him four questions. If you get the right answers, I 'll give you a hundred dollars."

Colburn struck a match, lighted his cigarette, and blew out the match thoughtfully. "How 'll you know whether they 're right or not?"

"I 'll know."

"You know the answers, then?"

"Yep."

The reporter puffed up a screen of smoke before his eyes and took a sharp look at the man through it, rolling the burnt match reflectively between a spatulate thick thumb and forefinger that were brown with nicotine. Fisher was leaning forward, his elbows on the arms of his chair, his little whitish eyes glittering with a malignant eagerness, his mouth twitching and hesitating on a thin smile.

Colburn said: "Suppose you say the answers are n't right—when they are."

"I 'll play the game square."

"Nothing doing." He tossed the match on the carpet. "Not on those terms."

"What? What 's the matter with it? I 've got four questions. The fellow that knows the answers—he 's right across the hall. All you have to do is to go over