“There is nothing to detain you,” Wingate replied politely, “unless you choose to take breakfast first.”

“We want no more of your hospitality,” Phipps muttered.  “You will hear of us again!”

Wingate stood between them and the door.

“Listen,” he said.  “You are going away, I can see, with one idea in your mind.  You have held your peace during the last quarter of an hour, because you have known that your lives would be forfeit if you told the truth, but you are saying to yourselves now that from the shelter of other walls you can tell your story.”

There was a furtive look in Rees’ eyes, a guilty twitch on his companion’s mouth.  Wingate smiled.

“You cannot,” he continued, “by the wildest stretch of imagination, believe that this has been a one-man job.  The whole scheme of your conveyance into Dredlinton House and into this room has necessitated the employment of something like twenty men.  The greater part of these, of course, have been paid by me.  One or two are volunteers.”

“Volunteers?” Phipps exclaimed.  “Do you mean that you could find men to do your dirty work for nothing?”

“I found men,” Wingate answered sternly, “and I could find many more—­and without payment, too—­who were willing to enter into any scheme directed against you and your company.”

“Are we to stand here,” Phipps demanded, “whilst you preach us a sermon about our business methods?”

“I am afraid, for your own sakes, you must hear what I have to say before you go,” Wingate replied.  “I will put it in as few words as possible.  If you give the show away, besides making yourselves the laughingstocks of the world you may live for twenty-four hours if my people are unlucky, but I give you my word of honour, Phipps—­and I will do you the credit of believing that you recognise truth when you come across it—­that you will both of you be dead before the dawn of the second day.”

Phipps leaned against the back of a chair.  He seemed to have aged ten years in the last few days.

“You threaten us with the vengeance of some secret society?” he demanded.

“Not so very secret, either,” Wingate rejoined, “but if you want to know the truth, I will tell it you.  The greatest problem which we had to face, in arranging this little escapade, was how we should keep you silent after your release.  We could think of none but primitive means, and those primitive means are established.  There are five men, each of them men who have been ruined by the operations of your company, who have sworn to take your lives if you should divulge the truth as to your detention here.  They are men of their word and they will do it.  That is the position, gentlemen.  I will not detain you any longer.”

Phipps moistened his dry lips.

“If,” he said, “we decide to hold our peace about the happenings of the last few days, it will not be because of your threats.”