Page:Belloc Lowndes--The chink in the armour.djvu/318

308 that she was very near to death—that it was only a question of minutes,—unless—unless she could make the man and woman before her understand that they would gain far more money by allowing her to live than by killing her now, to-night, for the value of the pearls that lay scattered on the floor, and the small, the pitiably small sum on her person.

"If you will let me go," she said, desperately, "I swear I will give you everything I have in the world!"

Madame Wachner suddenly laid her hand on Sylvia's arm, and tried to force her down on to her knees.

"What do you take us for?" she cried, furiously. "We want nothing from you—nothing at all!"

She looked across at her husband, and there burst from her lips a torrent of words, uttered in the uncouth tongue which the Wachners used for secrecy.

Sylvia tried desperately to understand, but she could make nothing of the strange, rapid-spoken syllables—until there fell on her ear, twice repeated, the name Wolsky. …

Madame Wachner stepped suddenly back, and as she did so L'Ami Fritz moved a step forward.

Sylvia looked at him, an agonised appeal in her eyes. He was smiling hideously, a nervous grin zig-zagging across his large, thin-lipped mouth.

"You should have taken the coffee," he muttered in English. "It would have saved us all so much trouble!"

He put out his left hand, and the long, strong fingers closed, tentacle-wise, on her slender shoulder.

His right hand he kept still hidden behind his back