Page:Frank Packard - The White Moll.djvu/65

 "I have," returned the Adventurer coolly. "My hearing is one of the resources that I wanted to pool with the White Moll."

"Well, den, mabbe it's Rough Rorke." Her tone still held its scoffing note; but her words voiced the fear, genuine enough, that had come flashing upon her. "An' if it is, after last night, an' he finds youse an' me together, dere'll be"

"My dear lady," interposed the Adventurer calmly, "if there were the remotest possibility that it could be Rough Rorke, I would not be here."

"Wot do youse mean?" She had unconsciously lowered her voice.

The Adventurer shrugged his shoulders whimsically. He had laid the piece of paper on his knee, and, with a small gold pencil which he had taken from his pocket, was writing something upon it.

"The fact that I can assure you that, whoever else it may be, the person outside there cannot be Rough Rorke, is simply a proof that, if I had the opportunity, I could be of real assistance to the White Moll," he said imperturbably. "Well"—a grim little smile flickered suddenly across his lips—"do you hear any one now?"

Quite low, but quite unmistakably, the short, ladder-like steps just outside the door were voicing a creaky protest now as some one mounted them. Rhoda Gray did not move. It seemed as though she could hear the sudden thumping of her own heart. Who was it this time? How was she to act? What was she to say? It was so easy to make the single little slip of word or manner that would spell ruin and disaster.

"Rubber heels and rubber soles," murmured the Adventurer. "But, at that, it is extremely well done." He held out the torn piece of paper to Rhoda Gray.