"I was told," said Gugliemi. "But I was not told to do it like this. This was an idea of my own. I was told to take my little gun and find out where you lived, and go in and shoot you and walk out again, and no questions would be asked. But I saw you once, when you looked out of the window I was watching in the street outside, and I decided that it could not be done like that. Not with anyone so young and beautiful."
He kissed his fingers to her, elegantly.
"So I have brought you to my little home. You have disappeared, and so the police will be satisfied. As for me, I also will be satisfied, and everything will be quite all right."
The ridiculous preciousness of his speech and gesture made the situation grotesque, and yet…
She looked round the bare, mean room, made dingier, if possible, by the fact that it was lighted only by a feeble gas jet in one corner. And while Gugliemi deliberated his next sentence, rocking gently in his chair, she listened in the silence, and heard no other sound in the house. Probably it was empty — Gugliemi would not have risked leaving her ungagged in a place where she might cry out and attract attention.
He seemed to read her thoughts with the restless dark eyes that searched her face with blatant appreciation of her beauty.
"No," he said, "there is ho one here. We are in Lambeth, and this is the caretaker's room over an empty warehouse. You can cry out if you like, but no one will hear you. And as soon as you promise me that you will behave yourself, I will take those straps away and you will be free."
"So," she said calmly, "Mr. Templar hasn't been arrested?"
He spread out his hands.
"How should I know? That was a story I made up. When he left your house, I did not follow him any more. I was not interested in him. Perhaps he has been arrested, perhaps he has not. Who can say?"