Lynch glanced at her keenly. "I've thought of that," he admitted. "There hasn't been anything of the sort with you, has there? Nothing melodramatic, like an automobile coming on you without warning, or a brick falling off a house, or a thug holding you up in a dark alleyway?"
The woman shook her head. "No," she said again, "and yet I've suffered as much the last few weeks, just from the dread of what he might do, almost as if he'd really tried. My nerve is pretty near gone, Tom."
Lynch nodded. "I know," he said briefly. "It isn't pleasant to feel there's some one gunning for you. At first I thought myself he'd try something of the kind, and of course he may yet, but I hardly think so. That's one of the complications I spoke about, for him. It's a good deal like one of these endless chains. It would probably be easy enough for him to get us put out of the way, but, even at that, he'd be no better off than before. There'd always be some one else to look out for, and they might not be as reasonable as we've been, either. No, I guess, on the whole, on that lay we're safe enough. If he ever makes a try, it's going to be a different one from that."
Mrs. Holton turned a shade paler. "You mean—" she faltered.
Lynch gave an impatient little laugh. "Exactly," he answered. "If he wants the job done, he'll do it himself. Try to do it himself, I should say. That's a pleasanter way of putting it."
A sudden gleam of comprehension darted across the woman's face, followed on the instant by an expression of abject fear. "God! Tom!" she cried sharply. "That's why you think he'll come!"
Lynch nodded. "That's it," he agreed. "He knows what he wants; we know what we want; it comes down to a question of who strikes first. With this difference—" he paused purposely for a moment, then added, with grim significance, "if we pull it off, it's successful blackmail; if he pulls it off, it's successful—murder."
Mrs. Holton's face showed gray in the lamplight. "God!" she muttered again.
There was a long pause. Then Lynch spoke again, half to his companion, half to himself. "No," he said meditatively, "there's no getting around it. In one way he's certainly got the best end of it. The thing he wants most is to see us out of the way; the thing we want least is to see anything happen to harm him. As I say, if we strike first, it merely costs him money; but, if he strikes first, that's all there is to it; we're done."
The woman, with an evident effort to pull herself together, drew a long breath. "And so," she said, with sarcasm, "knowing all this, you're going to try to get him down here, and give him the very chance he wants."