He did not answer her.
“Yes, you did very well, indeed,” she went on calmly. “You will meet somewhere else, of course, as soon as you can find a suitable place, but you will hold no more of your secret council meetings at Jerry’s for some time to come.”
Billy Kane’s face was impassive now. He was apparently intent only on the thin blue spiral of smoke that curled upward from the tip of his cigarette. So those meetings of that cursed directorate of crime had been held at Jerry’s, had they? He had not known that.
“Suppose,” suggested Billy Kane, curtly, “that we come to the point. What is it that you want to-night?”
“I am coming to the point,” she answered levelly. “Owing to the events of last night your organization is in confusion, some of the more faint-hearted of your partners have temporarily even taken to their heels; but, even so, the organization’s activities can hardly come to an abrupt standstill. You will perhaps remember a somewhat similar occasion once before? There are perhaps certain matters that are imperative, that cannot wait. Is it not so, Bundy? And in such an emergency it is left to—shall we call him the organization’s secretary?—to keep things going. Personal touch is lost with one another, but there is still a way. I know, it does not matter how, that Red Vallon received a written order a little while ago. I followed Red Vallon here. I think he gave that order to you.”
Billy Kane looked at her for a moment, a quizzical, whimsical expression creeping into his face. She was in deadly earnest, he knew that well. And yet there was a certain sense of humor here too—a grim humor with something of the sardonic in it, and nothing of mirth. Red Vallon’s code order was quite as meaningless to him as it would be to her!
“Sure!” said Billy Kane, alias the Rat—and chuckled. “Sure, he gave it to me! You don’t think I’d hold anything out on you, do you? Sure, he gave it to me!” He tossed the paper across the table toward her. “Help yourself! All you’ve got to do is ask for anything I’ve got, and it’s yours. You’re as welcome as the sunshine to it.”
She studied it for an instant calmly. Billy Kane, watching her narrowly, frowned slightly in a puzzled way. She appeared to be neither agitated nor confused. She raised her eyes to his, a glint half of mockery, half of menace, in their brown depths.
“Did you think I did not know it was in cipher?” she inquired coldly. “You would hardly have been so obliging otherwise, would you? It is always in cipher under these circumstances, isn’t it? Well, what is the translation?”
“Red Vallon didn’t tell me,” said Billy Kane complacently.