"Will you unlock that door?" she asked icily.
He did not move and his level gaze met hers calmly. "No, Moira——" he said gently, "I won't."
"Oh!" she gasped furiously, then turned her back and went to the window where she stood silently looking down over the garden.
Without noticing her further Horton turned toward Quinlevin.
"You seem to have forgotten your conversation with me in the hospital at Neuilly, Mr. Quinlevin, and the intimate blood-ties that bind me to your fellow-conspirator, Harry Horton."
Quinlevin had sunk into a chair in an attitude of careless grace and playing this old gambler's game smiled grimly up into the face of the enemy.
"Yer talents for the dramatic will be getting ye into trouble, Mr. Horton. I've only to be asking Moira to shout for help from the window to land ye in a jail. But I confess to some idle curiosity as to yer reasons for this behavior. And I warn ye that when ye unlock the door I'll see ye into the prison at Monaco. In the meanwhile I'll tell ye that what ye say will be held against ye."
"And what of the evidence I hold against you, Barry Quinlevin?"
"The evidence of a deserter from the American army," Quinlevin sneered. "Let it be brief and to the point, Corporal Horton."
"You don't alarm me," said Horton calmly. "I've discounted that. Give me up to the Provost Guard and my brother will go on the witness stand, against me, but against you too, Mr. Quinlevin, in Monsieur de Vautrin's interests." Horton laughed easily as the Irishman refused a reply. "Come. Perhaps it won't be necessary to go so far as that. If your friend Tricot had done his shooting at Marboeuf a little lower neither Piquette nor I would be here to oppose you."