Mahala looked at him in sick dismay. “We must get him out of here,” she said to Jason.
“Let them have him!” cried Jason. “His blood belongs to a hundred men in that crowd, only God knows to how many women.”
Mahala looked down at Martin Moreland, crouching, fawning. “Stand up!” she cried suddenly; and he obeyed. “Did you come here by an inside stairway?” she asked.
Martin Moreland drew a ring from his pocket, but his shaking fingers could only indicate the key. He turned to the door by which he had entered. Mahala opened it and said to Jason: “You and Marcia take him down to his private office. I’ll come in a minute.”
When the door closed after them, Mahala drew the lock and opened the outside door so that the sheriff and the men crowding the stairs could come into the room. She indicated Junior. “There is one of the men you want,” she said, “but he is out of your reach.”
She pointed to the revolver lying near his right hand. “He admitted to three of us and his father that he took his own life,” she said, “which is his way of acknowledging his guilt and showing that he was too big a coward to endure himself, what he put upon me—— But let that go, the debt is paid now.”
As she talked, Mahala backed toward the door to the inner stairway. When she reached it she added: “I was here when Martin Moreland heard Junior say he had shot himself and then he saw a ghost, and his brain gave way. The father is as far past your vengeance as the son. He is a cringing maniac. You people must go home quietly. Your work is finished for you.”
She swiftly stepped through the door and hurriedly locked it after her, running down the stairs. At the door to the private office she stood dazed. Martin Moreland, with shaking hands and babbling voice, was exhorting Jason and Marcia to pass under the white flag in the exact words of Rebecca, but there was no light of reason in his eyes.
Mahala looked at him a long time. Then she said to Jason: “Both of them have escaped you, and for your sake, it is best. Come on, we will take him home. No mob will attack an insane man, and once we have taken him to his home, our share of this is finished. Bring him along.”
“Wait a minute,” said Jason. He turned to Marcia. “There is no necessity for you to face the mob and be connected with this,” he said. He stretched his hand toward Mahala. “Give me those keys until I find the one that fits the back door. As soon as I let Marcia out, I will come back and do what you wish.”