She gazed at him affrighted, wild-eyed, with bosom heaving. Then summoned sufficient desperation to her aid to make one last attempt at fight. “I don’t know what you——”
“Cut that,” broke in the Inspector, “that won’t get you anything. We know you ... we know him ... we know your little lay in the billiard room last night when you handed over the Considine pearls. Where is he?”
“That I’ll never tell you,” she retorted—“never!”
“I think you will, my lady, when you’ve heard all I have to say,” stormed Baddeley, “if you don’t help me all you can and come across with what you know, I’ll do my level best to ‘swing’ your pretty ‘Spider.’”
Her face went ashen, and as the full import of his speech reached her brain, horror tinged her features.
“You can’t!” she gasped. “You can’t! The ‘Spider’ never touched ’im, never saw ’im ... the room was empty when I left it ... the ‘Spider’ went ... it’s God’s own truth I’m telling you....”
“I want the truth,” went on Baddeley, remorselessly and relentlessly, “you tell the truth and help me ... and I’ll help you ... if I can, that is.”
“It is the truth,” she sobbed. “The ‘Spider’ wouldn’t ’urt a fly.”
“No, I know, it doesn’t sound as though he would,” said Baddeley derisively. “Spiders don’t, as a rule, do they? You’re trapped, my girl, and you’ll see the inside of a prison cell before supper time to-night ... you realize that, don’t you? ... and if you don’t tell me where this precious husband of yours is to be found ... well, I shall find him all the same, and it will go pretty hard with the pair of you,” he paused, and then proceeded with studied deliberation, “ten years for you, we’ll say, and the execution shed for your partner.”
She gazed at him—fascinated at the dreadful picture he had painted for her imagination to dwell upon. Then answered him, white-lipped and trembling.