“Can you reach her from prison?” he asked calmly.
The man turned and snarled at him. He knew well enough that escape or resistance alike was hopeless. He was like a pigmy in the hands of the man who held him.
“This isn’t your affair,” he pleaded earnestly. “Let me go, or I shall do you a mischief some day. Remember it was you who helped me to escape. You can’t give me away now.”
“I helped you to escape,” Macheson said, “but I did not know what you had done. There is another matter. You have to go away from here quietly and swear never to molest——”
The man ducked with a sudden backward movement, and tried to escape, but Macheson was on his guard.
“You are a fool,” the man hissed out, his small bead-like eyes glittering as though touched with fire, his thick red lips parted, showing his ugly teeth. “It is money alone I want from her. I have but to breathe her name and this address in a certain quarter of Paris, and there are others who would take her life. Let me go!”
Then Macheson was conscious of a familiar figure crossing the street in their direction. He had seen him come furtively out of the house they had been watching, and had recognized him at once. It was Stephen Hurd. Keeping his grasp upon his captive’s shoulder, Macheson intercepted him.
“Hurd,” he said, “I want to speak to you.”
Hurd started, and his face darkened with anger when he saw who it was that had accosted him. Macheson continued hurriedly.