Mr. Goldhanger had been called a villain, a bloodsucker, a cheat, a devil, a ghoul, and innumerable other hard names, but never had anyone told him that he was a dead bore, and never had any of his victims looked at him with such amused contempt. He would have liked to have closed his long, bony fingers round Sophy’s throat and choked the life slowly out of her. But Sophy held a gun, so instead he unlocked a drawer in his desk, and sought in it with a trembling hand for what he wanted. He thrust a ring and a scrap of paper across the desk, and said, “The money! Give me my money!”
Sophy picked the bond up, and read it; then she put it, with the ring, into her muff, and withdrew from this convenient receptacle a wad of bills and laid it on the desk. “There it is,” she said.
Mechanically, he began to count the bills. Sophy rose. “And now, if you please, will you be so obliging as to turn your chair round with its back to the door?”
Mr. Goldhanger almost snarled at her, but he complied with this request, saying over his shoulder, “You need not be afraid! I am very glad to see you go!” He added, quivering with fury, “Doxy!”
Sophy chuckled. Fitting the key into the lock and turning it, she said, “Well, I really believe I would rather be a doxy than a turnip dressed up in a sheet to frighten silly boys!”
“Turnip?” repeated Mr. Goldhanger. “Turnip — ?”
But his unwelcome guest had gone.
Chapter 12
HUBERT WAS on his way upstairs to his room that evening when he met his cousin, coming down from the schoolroom. She said, “Hubert! The very person I wanted! Wait, I have something for you!” She then went into her own room, and came back in a minute or two, looking mischievous, and said, “Shut your eyes, and stretch out your hand!”
“Now, Sophy, is this something horrid?” he demanded suspiciously.