Page:Cruise of the Jasper B (1916).djvu/119

 "At any rate," continued Lady Agatha, "there was that terrible box upon my sitting-room floor, and there were those two degraded wretches. The callous beasts stood above the box apparently quite insensible to the ethical enormity of their crime. But they were keen enough to see that it might be used as a lever with which to force more money from me. For when I demanded that they take the box away with them and dispose of it, they only laughed at me. They said that they had had enough of that box. They had delivered the goods—that was the phrase they used—and they wanted more money. And they said they would not leave until they got it. They threatened, unless I gave them the money at once, to leave the place and get word to the police of the presence of the box in my apartment.

"I was in no mental condition to combat and get the better of them. I felt myself to be entirely in their power. I saw only the weakness of my own position. I could not, at the moment, see the weak spots in theirs. Elmer might have advised me—but he was not there. The miserable episode ended with my giving them a thousand dollars each, and they left.