"Let's hear about this," said Tinker, sitting down on the table.
"It's my poor husband's cousin, Mr. Alexander McNeill. He engaged me to come here to act as maid to a young lady he was helping get away from those Jesuits who were trying to force her into a convent to get her money," said Selina.
"You've been humbugged, then. What you are doing is helping to kidnap my adopted sister Elsie, and Miss Dorothy Rainer, the daughter of an American millionaire," said Tinker joyfully.
Dorothy started and flushed. "How did you learn that?" she said quickly.
"Your father's come from America, and he and my father are looking for you, though where they are there's no saying. I left them at Ventimiglia arrested as spies," said Tinker.
"Arrested as spies?" cried Dorothy.
But Selina, whose face had undergone a slow but violent change, broke in, "So Alexander's humbugged me, has he? He's brought me all the way from Paris here by a lie about Jesuits having tried to bury this young lady in one of their nasty convents, to do his dirty kidnapping work, has he? I'll kidnap him! I'll teach him to play these tricks on me!"
"Do!" said Tinker with warm approval. "You let him have it! Think that you're pitching into me like you used to! Come along, all of you! Selina's simply tremendous when her back's up!"
Selina opened the door, and went down the stairs with all the outraged majesty of a Boadicea. The three of them followed her quietly, and at the bottom Tinker bade Dorothy and Elsie unbar the door of the house and himself kept close behind Selina. She opened the door of the room; and at the sight of her the sustained shriek in which the Italian and the Frenchman were conversing died suddenly down, and the three kidnappers stared at her.
"You nasty, body-snatching scum!" said Selina, glowering at them.