“She invited me in.”
“That sounds a likely story.”
I reached over to my coffee cup, let my hand slip, and tipped the coffee all over the table-cloth.
The instinctive reaction was too strong. She came up out of the chair like a shot. “You clumsy fool!” she said. “Put something under it, so it doesn’t reach the table.”
I took a handkerchief from my pocket, made futile attempts at sopping up the mess.
“No, no!” she said, underneath it! Quick! Before it reaches the table.”
She came flying across the room, and as she got on the other side of the table I tipped the whole thing over on top of her, reached across the tilted table-top, grabbed her gun wrist, twisted the arm, took the gun, and said, “Not a sound. Out the back way. Quick!”
She was so white the make-up showed as orange patches on each cheek.
“Down the back way,” I repeated, and then added, fiendishly, “Do you want a stocking tied around your little white neck, a nice stocking that would shut off the air? My, you’d look pretty choking to death, you…”
That did it. She started to scream. I clapped my hand over her mouth, and said, “One word out of you and I’ll wrap that stocking around your neck. Out the back way.”