“I will!” she said, through tight lips. “If you will not stop it yourself—then I will. No matter what it costs, no matter what it means—to you, or to me—I will!”
Nicolo Capriano laughed—and the room rang with the pealing laughter that was full of unhinged, crazy, shuddering mirth.
“Fool!” he cried. “You will stop it—eh? And how will you stop it? Will you tell the police? Ha, ha! Then you, too, would betray dear Tony's friend! You would tell the police what they want to know—that Dave Henderson can be found in New York, and that he has gone there to get the money back. Or perhaps you will write another letter—and tell Dago George to pay no attention to my orders? Ha, ha! And it is too bad that our young friend himself has gone, and left you no address so that you could intercept him!”
Teresa drew back a little, and into her eyes came trouble and dismay. And Nicolo Capriano's laugh rang out again—and was checked by a spasm of coughing—and rang out once more, ending in a sort of triumphant scream.
“Well, and what do you think now about stopping it—eh? Do you imagine that Nicolo Capriano sees no farther than his nose? Stop it! Bah! No one will stop it—and, least of all, you!”
She seemed to have overcome the dismay that had seized upon her, though her face had grown even whiter than before.
“It is true, what you say,” she said, in a low, strained voice. “But there is one way left, one way to find him, and warn him, and I will take that way.”
“Hah!” Nicolo Capriano glared at her. His voice dropped. “And what is that way, my little one?” he purred, through a fit of coughing. “Old Nicolo would like to know.”
“To go where Dave Henderson is going,” she answered. “To go where he can be found, to go to New York, to keep him from going to Dago George's, or, if I am too late for that, to warn him there before Dago George has had time to do him any harm, and——”
Her words ended in a startled cry. Nicolo Capriano's long, slim fingers, from the bed, had shot out, locked about her waist, and were wrenching at her in a mad-man's fury.