“And perhaps you will get it for us?” she suggested softly.
There was a grim sort of finality in Dayler’s short, unpleasant laugh.
“No!” he said.
“Well then”—she still spoke softly—“suppose I were to tell you that the Men Who Never Sleep have been advised that Dayler and John Forbes are one, and that they are travelling down from the Canadian West now, and that to-morrow you will be arrested—and that the letter is already gone.”
“Gone!” It came in a startled cry. Dayler half rose from his chair, but dropped back again quite coolly, a sarcastic smile suddenly on his lips. “Clever!” he said ironically. “Quite a pretty little ruse to get me to indicate the whereabouts of that paper! Perhaps you will try something else now!”
“Bundy”—she turned calmly to Billy Kane—“open the door of that little cupboard on the left of the mantel.”
Billy Kane stepped across the room in a sort of mechanical obedience, and opened the leaded glass door—just as Dayler, his self-assurance shaken now, jumped from his chair, and rushed to the mantel.
“Perhaps”—her voice came calmly again from the table—“Mr. Dayler prefers to look for himself, after all, Bundy!”
The man seemed to be fighting desperately for a grip upon himself, and again his jaws snapped hard together.
“No!” he cried. “It’s another trick to get the combination of that safe, to get me to open it! Do you think I’m a fool to let that paper go now, even at the cost of my life, after you have so kindly warned me that I am to be arrested to-morrow? You would have done better not to have talked quite so much!”