“Of course it wasn’t loaded,” he remarked. “Of course I had seen to that earlier in the day. I am not such a bungler——”
“Then I didn’t save your life?”
“You force me to say that you did not, and to remind you that you gave me your word not to emerge from behind the screen. However, seeing the motive, I can only thank you for that lapse. The pity is that it hopelessly compromises you.”
“Me?” exclaimed Miss Fincastle.
“You. Can’t you see that you are in it, in this robbery, to give the thing a label. You were alone with the robber. You succoured the robber at a critical moment.... ‘Accomplice,’ Mr. Bowring himself said. My dear journalist, the episode of the revolver, empty though the revolver was, seals your lips.”
Miss Fincastle laughed rather hysterically, leaning over the table with her hands on it.
“My dear millionaire,” she said rapidly, “you don’t know the new journalism to which I have the honour to belong. You would know it better had you lived more in New York. All I have to announce is that, compromised or not, a full account of this affair will appear in my paper to-morrow morning. No, I shall not inform the police. I am a journalist simply, but a journalist I am.”
“And your promise, which you gave me before going behind the screen, your solemn promise that you would reveal nothing? I was loth to mention it.”
“Some promises, Mr. Thorold, it is a duty to break, and it is my duty to break this one. I should never have given it had I had the slightest idea of the nature of your recreations.”
Thorold still smiled, though faintly.