“Why?” she asked.
“Because you are in possession of information that he wants.”
“What information? It isn’t true. I know nothing.”
“I am sorry,” he apologized again. “The cigarette papers. You read them.”
“No—no.”
“You forget that you have already admitted that. You have also read the second message which was to take the place of the first.”
“You are dreaming. A second message? I know nothing of a second message.”
“Pardon me, if I remind you of it. You would have burned it in the drawing-room at Kilmorack House if Mr. Hammersley hadn’t taken it from your hand.”
She stared at him bewildered at his astounding omniscience, his devilish ingenuity. It frightened her, his cleverness and his pursuit of her. It seemed that she had never had a chance to get away from him. And yet his manner was so carefully studied, his attitude toward her so coldly impersonal that as a man once a lover she no longer feared him. If love of her had ever been in his heart, a greater passion had burned it out. She was grateful for this and prepared to measure her woman’s wit to his, thinking of Cyril. What would Cyril have her do?
“You mean that you will let them—the Germans—question me?”