Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/175

 and the wireless operator of this ship," she deliberately answered.

"A contract?" said McKinnon.

"It was the agreement you signed to become a partner of this man."

"And you tore this agreement up?" demanded McKinnon with an assumption of incredibility. He waited for her glance of intelligence to show him that she had caught some vague inkling of his position, of the attitude of armed neutrality he was struggling to retain in that strange tangle of interests; but she did not seem to understand.

"You saw me tear it up," she replied, wondering in turn just what was expected of her, anxious not to endanger him by any foolish misstep on her part.

"Why?" asked McKinnon.

"I could not see any one tied to a man whose hands are stained with blood."

Ganley laughed a heavy and mirthless laugh, as though resenting the theatricality of the woman's phrase.

"That's a hell of a reason!" he mumbled in his sullen guttural.

"I did it because I know what this man is," went on the woman, turning her slow and puzzled stare from the operator to Ganley.

McKinnon, now in perfect control of himself,