“I am here as an emissary. There was nothing for me to do but accept the job.”
“Did he have the stones?” asked Cutty, without the least suspicion of what was coming.
“That I don't know. He pretended to have them in order to get me where he wanted me. I've been hungry a good deal because I wouldn't talk. I'm here as a negotiator. A rotten business. I agreed because I've hopes you'll be able to put one over on Karlov. It's the girl.”
“Kitty?”
“Karlov has her. The girl wasn't to blame. Any one in the game would have done as she did. Karlov is bugs on politics; but he's shrewd enough at this sort of game. He trapped the girl because he'd studied her enough to learn what she would or would not do. Now they are not going to hurt her. They merely propose exchanging her for the man you've been hiding up here. There's a taxi downstairs. It will carry me back to Fifteenth; then it will return and wait. If the man is not at the appointed place by midnight—he must go in this taxi—the girl will be carried off elsewhere, and you'll never lay eyes on her again. Karlov and his gang are potential assassins; all they want is excuse. Until midnight they will not touch the girl; but after midnight, God knows! What message am I to take back?”
“Do you know where she is?”
Cutty spoke without much outward emotion.
“Not the least idea. Whenever Karlov wanted to quiz me, he appeared late at night from some other part of the town. But he never got much.”
“You saw him this evening?”
“Yes. It probably struck him as a fine joke to send me.”