I had allowed her to trap me after all! I had even let myself half-believe that pleasant myth of the slumbering husband in the next room. And all the while she was guarding this unsavory-looking confederate who, ten to one, had been slinking about and working his way into a wall-safe even while I was wasting time with diverting but costly talk.
And with that gun-barrel blinking at me I had no choice in the matter—I was compelled to assume the impotent and undignified attitude of a man supplicating the unanswering heavens. The woman turned and contemplated the newcomer, contemplated him with a fine pretense of surprise.
"Hobbs," she cried, "how did you get here?"
"You shut up!" he retorted over his shoulder.
"What are you doing in this house?" she repeated, with a sustained show of amazement.
"Oh, I'll get round to you, all right, all right," was his second rejoinder.
Hobbs' left hand, in the meanwhile, had lifted my watch from its pocket and with one quick jerk tore watch and chain away from its waistcoat anchorage.
"You're a sweet pair, you two!" I ejaculated, for that watch was rather a decent one and I hated to see it ill-treated.
"Shut up!" said Hobbs, as his hand went down in my breast-pocket in search of a wallet. I knew, with that gun-barrel pressed close against my body, that it would be nothing short of suicidal to try to have it out with him then and there. I had to submit to that odious pawing and prodding about my body. But if my turn ever came, I told myself, it would be a sorry day for Hobbs—and an equally sorry one for that smooth-tongued confederate of his.
"You're a sweet pair!" I repeated, hot to the bone, as that insolent hand went down into still another pocket.