Rhoda Gray stared in genuine perplexity.
“Wot's de answer?” she demanded.
“There is some one on the stairs,” replied the Adventurer.
Rhoda Gray listened—and her perplexity deepened. She could hear nothing.
“Youse must have good ears!” she scoffed.
“I have,” returned the Adventurer coolly. “My hearing is one of the resources that I wanted to pool with the White Moll.”
“Well, den, mabbe it's Rough Rorke.” Her tone still held its scoffing note; but her words voiced the genuine enough, that had come flashing upon her. “An' if it is, after last night, an' he finds youse an' me together, dere'll be—”
“My dear lady,” interposed the Adventurer calmly, “if there were the remotest possibility that it could be Rough Rorke, I would not be here.”
“Wot do youse mean?” She had unconsciously towered her voice.
The Adventurer shrugged his shoulders whimsically. He had laid the piece of paper on his knee, and, with a small gold pencil which he had taken from his pocket, was writing something upon it.