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268 manifest that, whether or not deceived, she meant to take the situation quietly, if in a strong hand.

Her eyes narrowed and the muscles of her square, almost masculine jaw hardened ominously as she looked the intruder up and down. Then a flicker of contempt modified the grimness of her countenance. She took three steps forward, pausing on the other side of the desk, her back to the doorway.

Lanyard trembled visibly. …

"Well!"—the word boomed like the opening gun of an engagement—"Well, my man!"—the shrewd eyes swerved to the closed door of the safe and quickly back again—"you don't seem to have accomplished much!"

"For God's sake, madame!" Lanyard blurted in a husky, shaken voice, nothing like his own—"don't have me arrested! Give me a chance! I haven't taken anything. Don't call the flics!"

He checked, moving an uncertain hand towards his throat as if his tongue had gone dry.

"Come, come!" the woman answered, with a look almost of pity. "I haven't called anyone—as yet."

The fingers of one strong white hand were drumming gently on the top of the desk; then, with a movement so quick and sure that Lanyard himself could hardly have bettered it, they slipped down to a handle of a drawer, jerked it open, closed round the butt of a revolver, and presented it at the adventurer's head.

Automatically he raised both hands.

"Don't shoot!" he cried. "I'm not armed—"

"Is that the truth?"