"Oh, no, you don't. This is just a lovely way out. Glad he had the inspiration. Hello, Nick."
A man had groped his way between the trees and stood just under the window.
"What are you doing here?" asked Doremus sourly.
"Witness, witness, my dear Nick. Besides, poor Hélène never would have come alone, so there you are."
"To hell with all this melodramatic business. It could have been done anywhere—"
"Not much. Dark corners for dark doings."
"Well, hand it over."
Ruyler had given his brain an icy shower bath as soon as he heard his wife's voice, and was now as cool and alert as even the detective could have wished. He did not wait for the promised impulse to his elbow; his hand shot up just ahead of Doremus's and closed over his wife's hand, which, he felt at once, held the ruby. At the same moment Spaulding caught Doremus by his medieval collar and shook him until the man's teeth chattered, then he slapped his face and kicked him.
"Now, you," he said standing over the panting man, who was mopping his bleeding nose, and holding the electric torch so that it would shine on his own face. "You get out of California, d'you hear? You're a gambler and a blackmailer and a panderer to old women, and I've got some evidence that would drag you into court however it turned out, so's you'd find this town a live gridiron. So, git, while you can. Go while the going's good."
Doremus, too shaken to reply, slunk off, and Spaulding after a glance upward, left as silently.