Page:Guy Boothby - The Beautiful White Devil.djvu/140

 most suspicious, and he will be doubly so now. For every reason it is impossible for me to go into Singapore and abduct him in my own proper person, so I must do it in disguise."

"No!" I answered promptly; "you must not run such a risk. Supposing he should recognise you?"

"He has never seen me in his life," she replied; then, smiling, she continued, "And you have evidently not yet grasped my talent for disguising myself."

"But somebody must accompany you," said "Walworth, who all this time had been turning my scheme over and over in his mind; "and the worst part of it is, he knows me so well that I dare not go."

Long before this I had made up my mind.

"I think, since you have honoured me with your confidence," I said, turning to Alie, "I have a right to ask a favour at your hands."

She looked at me with a little surprise.

"And what is that favour, Dr. De Normanville?" she asked.

"That in whatever you are going to do you will let me help you. No; I am not making this offer without thought, I assure you. It is my greatest wish to be of any service I can to you."

I saw Walworth look at me in rather a peculiar fashion, but whatever he may have thought he kept to himself. Alie paused before replying, then she stretched out her little hand to me.

"I accept your offer in the spirit in which it is made," she said. "I will ask you to help me to get this traitor out of the way. Now we must consider the modus operandi."