Page:Arthur Stringer - The Shadow.djvu/129

 "He will not come," she told him. "It will be done from the dark. I could have done it. But Ottenheim said no."

"And Ottenheim said you were to work with me in this," declared Blake, putting two and two together.

The woman shrugged a white shoulder.

"Have you any money?" she asked. She put the question with the artlessness of a child.

"Mighty little," retorted Blake, still studying the woman from where he stood. He was wondering if Ottenheim had the same hold on her that the authorities had on Ottenheim, the ex-forger who enjoyed his parole only on condition that he remain a stool-pigeon of the high seas. He pondered what force he could bring to bear on her, what power could squeeze from those carmine and childish lips the information he must have.

He knew that he could break that slim body of hers across his knee. But he also knew that he had no way of crushing out of it the truth he sought, the truth he must in some way obtain. The woman still squatted on the