“When you’ve quite done your charming reminiscences—which, I may say, are hardly tactful in the presence of the aggrieved husband—we’ll just go through the mere formality of tying you up, young fellow. Got any rope about the office, Miriam?”
“There’s some cord of sorts, I believe in the clerks’ room.”
“Get it, there’s a good girl. If it won’t do we’ll have to use the blind cord. Oh, by the way, you can put your hands down now—but stand back in that corner where my gun’ll reach you before your fists can do any harm.”
Wraile, for all his bantering manner, did not for a second take his eye off his captive, while he kept him covered with an unwavering pistol. Miriam Wraile was soon back with a length of coarse but strong packing cord.
“Now, Lessingham,” said Wraile, “it’s about time you took the stage—you truss him up—then you’ll be as guilty as we are. Give it him, darling.”
Lessingham recoiled from the proffered cord.
“I—I’d rather not,” he said. “I don’t know how to—I don’t think I’ve ever tied anything.”
Wraile looked at him with surprise, not unmixed with contempt.
“Oh, all right,” he said. “Give it to me. You’ll note he doesn’t protest against the assault, Fratten; his moral assent to it is just as incriminating as active participation. What a pity there’s no one to witness it.”
“Oh, I’ll do that for you,” said Ryland. “Don’t worry; you’re evidently all in it.”