"You despicable coward!" she cried. "How like the Hun!"
"Be silent! Your immunity is not irrevocable."
A receipt of deposit! She understood now. A receipt of deposit for that manila envelope. To have come all this way, and then lose! And it came to her like a blow that she herself was directly the cause. He had not wanted to get into the taxi, and she had forced him. In trying to save him she had merely led him to defeat. But the tameness, when she knew that he was quick as light!
"You will be detained about an hour. A telephone-call will release you. Madame, my thanks. You made everything very easy for us. Without your innocent assistance there might have been difficulties. Unwittingly, you have entered the war zone, with casualties."
Then, with an ironical wave of the hand, the man in the black handkerchief stepped forth and closed the door.
Mathison pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his lips, turning gradually so that his back was toward the double doors.
"I could cry!" she said. "All my fault!"
Mathison laid a warning finger on his bruised lips. Instinctively he knew that he was being watched. The affair wasn't over yet.
"Please don't feel badly. The fortunes of war. The thing is done. Don't bother any more about it."