“Let us wait—you let us?” Irene flared. “A dozen of you couldn’t have forced me to desert him, Millsy Harford—not whilst I had my health and strength!”
Despite her ardor, Pape managed to free his arm of her hold. With his eyes he re-asked the question put to Jane. He could see that she was confused, annoyed, justifiably suspicious of the youngster vamp’s proprietorship.
“Don’t you worry about any unfinished business of Miss Lauderdale,” Harford added with augmented insolence. “I think she will concede that I am more competent and quite as willing as you to attend any and all such. On my advice she has given up her search for a mythical needle mythically buried in this park haystack. Haven’t you, Jane? Haven’t you, dear?”
Pape, while listening to the man, looked to the woman; gained her gaze, saw her lips form to an unvoiced “No.” Fresh love for her and fresh hate for him—fresh suspicion and the courage thereof possessed him.
“Meantime, I suppose, your hirelings are tumbling up this park haystack according to the directions of that cryptogram you took from Mrs. Sturgis’ wall-safe?”
“You damned blighter, you dare accuse me of theft?”
Pape laughed into the snarled demand. “And why not accuse? I don’t like you and I don’t trust you. Miss Lauderdale’s unfinished business is safer in my hands than yours. You lie when you say that she has transferred it to you. She knows who is the better man. In case you’re not sure, I am ready to show.”
“No readier than I, you weak fish out of water.” Harford’s voice shook into higher, harder notes. “You couldn’t very well call me a thief and a liar without showing. As I told you this morning you’ll have to answer to me if you raise any more of a row around Miss Lauderdale. When will you give me a chance to——”
“Now?” Pape suggested.
“You don’t mean here, before the girls, in a public place where the cops are likely——”