"Go back to the Carr Arms," said Herrick to Joyce sternly, "and wait for me there. If you try to run away, I shall have you arrested."
"You cannot arrest me," blustered Robin looking desperately afraid.
"I can. I have evidence you know nothing about. Go!"
Robin seemed inclined to dispute the order, but when Herrick made a step in his direction he caught up his hat and fled through the window. "He will run away," said Bess.
"Let him try," remarked Herrick grimly, "I can have him arrested at once and I will. Insult you, did he--the hound!"
"It was my own fault for being so kind to him," cried Bess excitedly, "as if I cared for him. It was only because he was a writer that I let him come and see me so often. But I shall not have anything more to do with him. He sent me a manuscript. I shall send it back. Where is it? and she began to pull out the drawers in the writing-table.
"Don't get excited Bess," said Jim using her Christian name in his hurry. "I will put it alright."
But Bess in a rage kept turning over the papers and scattering them on the floor in her search for the manuscript. Suddenly she tossed aside a pile of writing-paper in the left-hand drawer. Underneath was an old fashioned pistol. She looked at it in astonishment. "Where did that come from?" she asked in dismay, taking it up.
Herrick took it from her. He recognised it at once. It was the very pistol that Manuel had shown him in Joyce's flat.
"What does it mean?" asked Bess quite amazed at the discovery.