“I know you,” she repeated slowly. “You’re Double Dan!”
He leapt to his feet, the pistol covering him. Waving wild hands, he strove to speak.
“You’re Double Dan,” she said, and the fire in her eyes was now ominous. “I’ve heard about you. You’re the impersonator. You and your woman confederate lure innocent men from their homes, that you can rob them.” She looked round. “Where is the woman? Doesn’t she appear on the scene, or does her work finish when the luring is completed?”
“Diana, I swear to you you’re mistaken. I’m Gordon, your cousin.”
She smiled slowly.
“You haven’t been as careful as usual, Dan. And the fact that I call you by your Christian name need not inspire you with a desire to get better acquainted. You haven’t studied him. My cousin, Gordon Selsbury, had little side-whiskers—didn’t you know that?”
“I—I had an accident. In fact,” said Gordon, “I took them off ... to please you.”
Her sneering smile chilled him through and through.
“My cousin Gordon is not the kind of man who would have an accident with his whiskers,” she said with cold deliberation. “Where is your lady friend?”
He tried to look away from the curtained recess, stared solemnly ahead of him, but involuntarily his eyes strayed to the garden door. And then Diana saw the slightest of movements.