Suddenly her mind was made up, and with a quick movement she rushed across to the electric bell beside the fireplace.
He gave vent to a short dry laugh of triumph, the reason of which was next second plain. The little porcelain push had been broken, and the contact disarranged.
Jim Jannaway always took precautions. He was a cool and calculating scoundrel.
She turned upon him in quick anger, and he saw that she intended to scream for help.
"One moment, if you please, Miss Griffin," he cried in a low voice.
"Just hear my suggestion before you raise the alarm and compel me to depart hurriedly through the window. A word now will save both of us a great deal of unnecessary bother afterwards. You're a very brave little girl, and I admire you for it. Most other girls, on seeing me here, would have gone into hysterics, or fainted. But you're a little `brick.'"
"Thank you, this is really no time for compliments," was her cold, resentful reply. "Please say what you have to say, and quickly."
She had managed to cross the room half-way, and from where she now stood she could see that the precious document she had typed lay open at its last page. The fellow had evidently read it all!
"Well," he said, in that easy-going manner of his that she found so extremely irritating. "As far as I can at present discern, Miss Griffin, the game is a drawn one. I can quite--"
"I consider it blackguardly impertinence on your part to enter my father's house at night, and read his private papers," she protested, her face pale and determined.
"My dear girl, to me your opinion of my actions really doesn't matter,"
he laughed. "I wanted to discover something, and have adopted the easiest means of doing so."
"Even at risk of being arrested?"
"Oh, I shan't be arrested," he laughed. "Don't think I'm afraid of that. Why, my dear girl, perhaps you wouldn't believe it, but this isn't the first time I've been in this very room. I know what's in all those drawers yonder, and even the balance in your father's banker's pass-book."
"You've been here before!" gasped the girl astounded. "How did you get in?"
"Why, with your own key. It was easy enough. Your servants never bolt the front door. They really ought to be more careful, you know," he laughed.
She hesitated for a moment, and in that slight hesitation he, crafty malefactor that he was, recognised that he had triumphed.
"I may presume, I suppose, that you've read that document upon the writing-table?" she asked a moment later.
"I have--every word of it," he replied, with a polite bow.
"That is why you came here?"
"It was. I really expected to experience greater trouble in finding it.
I opened only three drawers before coming across it."
"Probably you'd like a copy of it," she said, with bitter sarcasm.
"Thank you, no. I have a very excellent memory, and can recollect all I require. Besides, I've taken a few notes," was the bold and defiant answer, "All I would request of you, my dear girl, is to keep a still tongue in your head, go up to bed, and forget all about this unexpected meeting. Such a course will be much the best for you, I assure you."
"You--my enemy, are trying to advise me as a friend--eh? This is really amusing! I tell you quite frankly that I intend to give you over to the police. You cleverly entrapped me, and now from me you may expect no clemency."
"I want none," he laughed. "But if I'm arrested, your friend, `Red Mullet,' shall also see the inside of a prison again. I promise you that."
"He is innocent of this burglary," she said.
"But he isn't innocent of certain other little matters about which Scotland Yard will be only too delighted to know," replied the fellow, with an evil grin. "So if you don't want him to go to `quod'--and he's been pretty good to you, I think--you'd better remain silent about to-night. And there's the other matter--the--"
And he paused, and looked straight into her face, without concluding.
"Well?" she asked in a hard voice, holding the train of her robe with one hand, and still facing him boldly. "And what is the other matter, pray?"
"I wish to tell you quite plainly that if you choose to be a little fool, you'll take the consequences. They'll fall on you, and pretty heavily too. Trust me to escape them."
"And I tell you that I intend to be a little fool, as you so politely put it," was her fearless response. "It is my duly to my father to go at once and tell him of my discovery. And I will!"
"Very well," he answered quite calmly, his evil eyes still fixed upon hers. "Go. You are perfectly at liberty. To me, it is of no great consequence, but to you it will mean both the ruin of your reputation and the loss of your lover!"
"How?" she gasped quickly, her face in an instant as pale as death.
"How?" he echoed in a fierce low whisper, advancing until he was close to the girl. "Cannot you see that I shall tell Frank Farquhar the truth of your absence from your home--that you met me, and stayed with me in those rooms!"
"You scoundrel!" she cried, drawing away from him, her cheeks flushed with sudden anger. "You threatened this before--you despicable coward, to thus try and take advantage of a woman's good name! You destroyed that false telegram, so that I should not have it to show as proof!"
"You could get a copy from the post-office, I daresay," he laughed airily. "But I merely make plain what is my intention, and that's why I've come to the conclusion that the game between us is a drawn one."
"Your threats have no terror for me!" she exclaimed, turning fiercely upon him. He saw that in her big eyes was determination and defiance, and was surprised.
"Then shout away, my dear girl--scream the house down, if you like," he laughed coolly, as though with utter unconcern. "But just let me put things straight again first." Then walking to the writing-table he took the translation of the decipher, replaced it in its drawer, and relocked it with a key he drew from his pocket.
His coolness was amazing, his cunning, extraordinary. The long window leading to the balcony over the portico was ajar. He had fixed a thin silken rope to the railings ready for escape to the street in case of necessity.
"Your conduct is abominable!" she ejaculated. "What harm have I done you that I should deserve this?"
"My dear girl, my conduct is only abominable of necessity, I assure you," he argued with an impudent smile. "Our compact is simple enough.
You do not wish to lose the man you love. Indeed, why should you?"
"Ah! why indeed?" she cried. "I have you alone to thank for all the evil suspicions cast upon me."
"You have told them nothing--of course. You're far too clever for that--eh?" he remarked, standing easily before her with his hands in his pockets. "Besides, what could you say?"
"I could say nothing," she replied bitterly. "I only know that you lied to me, by posing as Frank's friend."
"My dear little girl," he answered with an arrogant laugh. "I was compelled to tell you a fairy-story, because--well, shall I tell you the truth?--because I was so very anxious for the loan of your latch-key."
"Then why was I kept there a prisoner? Why did that red-faced blackguard come to me, and threaten me?"
"I had nothing whatever to do with that. I was not there," he protested.
"You enticed me into the hateful place by saying that Frank was in hiding there," she replied firmly.
"For the reason I have already explained. I apologise. Can I do more, Miss Griffin?"
"Apologise!" she echoed in a hoarse whisper. "You apologise! I wish for no apology!"