In spite of her inexperience, which, in Mr. Broffin's field, was no less than total, Charlotte Farnham had imagination, and with it a womanly zest for the matching of wits with a man whose chief occupation was the measuring of his own wit against the subtle cleverness of criminals. Therefore she accepted the challenge.
"I did my whole duty at the time, Mr. Broffin," she demurred, with a touch of coldness in her voice. "If you were careless enough to let him escape you at St. Louis, you shouldn't come to me. I might say very justly that it was never any affair of mine."
Matthew Broffin's gifts were subtle only in his dealings with other men; but he was shrewd enough to know that his last and best chance with a woman lay in an appeal to her fears.
"I don't know what made you write this letter, in the first place," he said, taking the well-thumbed paper from his coat pocket; "but I know well enough now why you didn't sign it, and why you didn't put the man's real name in it. You—you and him—fixed it up between you so that you could say to yourself afterwards what you've just said to me—that you'd done your duty. But you haven't finished doin' your duty, yet. The law says——"
"I know very well what the law says," was her baffling rejoinder; "I have taken the trouble to find out since I came home. I am not hiding your criminal."
Broffin was trying to gain a little ease by tilting his chair. But the house wall was too close behind him.
"People will say that you are helpin' to hide him as long as you won't tell his real name—what?" he grated.
"You still think I could tell you that, if I chose?" she said, wilfully misleading him, or at least allowing him to mislead himself.
"I don't think anything about it: I know! You'd met him somewhere before that day in the bank—before you knew he was goin' to turn gentleman hold-up. That's why you don't want to give up his real name."
She had risen in answer to the distant chatter of an electric bell, and in self-defence, Broffin had to grope on the floor for his hat and stand up, too.