“Reckon you better say something quick, friend,” he drawled.
Urselli’s face twisted and twitched, his hunted eyes swiveling frantically over the bank of remorseless faces. He shrank away like a cornered animal.
“It’s not true!” he blubbered. “I ain’t done nothing. Ya can’t frame this on me! This won’t help ya. That ransom’s gotta be paid by midnight — an’ if it ain’t there—”
The clamor which had been hushed began again. Fingers plucked at him. Red eyes glowered into his whichever way he turned. And all the time the innkeeper’s inexorable hands held him as helpless as a struggling child. Urselli screamed.
“Don’t touch me!” he gasped, writhing away from them. “You’re all wrong. You don’t know what you’re doing. Gimme a break. Don’t touch me! Salvatore — you wouldn’t let them do this to me? I’ll do anything — anything. Here, look. I told you I had twenty thousand bucks. You can have them. I’ll give them to you. Take them and pay the ransom!”
“What do you think. Salvatore?” asked the sheriff steadily.
Silence came down again, raw-edged and expectant. Intuccio turned. He shrugged, and the slobbering object in his grip rose and fell like a puppet with the heave of his shoulders.
“It is easy enough to pay ransom to oneself,” he said skeptically. “But I can take his money. If they will give Lucia back to me — if she is safe — afterwards we shall see.”
“We can all go with you,” spoke up one of the bystanders, and there was a chorus of assent. “If we can catch one o’ them thar coyotes—”
Others chimed in.