Page:Arthur Stringer - The Shadow.djvu/87

 stop that Stockholm white-slave work in two months. And when you see Wilkie to-morrow you can swing me one way or the other!"

Copeland, with his chin on his bony breast, looked up to smile into her intent and staring eyes.

"You are a very clever woman," he said. "And what is more, you know a great deal!"

"I know a great deal!" she slowly repeated, and her steady gaze succeeded in taking the ironic smile out of the corners of his eyes.

"Your knowledge," he said with a deliberation equal to her own, "will prove of great value to you—as an agent with Wilkie."

"That's as you say!" she quietly amended as she rose to her feet. There was no actual threat in her words, just as there was no actual mockery in his. But each was keenly conscious of the wheels that revolved within wheels, of the intricacies through which each was threading a way to certain remote ends. She picked up her black gloves from the desk top. She stood there, waiting.

"You can count on me," he finally said, as