Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/162

 T was the ring that had made me think of Wendy Washburn. I remembered that he had been generous, once before, when he might have been merely just. He had helped me once when I needed help, when to all intents and purposes I was in the wrong. If I was wrong in this bigger movement, then it was up to my Hero-Man to say so, but I intended to snatch at my chance, while that chance was still before me. I knew there were risks, but I had no time to think about them. I merely remembered that it was useless to think of using my own name. And Wendy Washburn's was the only one that came to me, in that moment of emergency. I rather relished the thought, in fact, of calmly willing a quarter of a million to a man I'd only talked to once in my life.

What he would do with that quarter of a million, I did not even attempt to answer. I was given no time to meditate over such things for the drama about that four-poster was too quick-moving to remain long neglected.

Yet I saw, once I had dropped my bomb in their