We trooped up-stairs. Some of the boys had been drinking. There was a good bit of noise. The office as I have already explained is the front room on the second floor. It extends the width of the house, and it has three windows. That on the left is over the portico and stoop.
At the right of the room is a large flat-topped desk. Lorina sat at it with her back to the fireplace. She motioned me to a seat at her right. The men lounged in chairs about, some of them with their elbows on the desk. Lorina ordered the door closed. I was wondering if I'd ever leave that room alive.
Lorina rapped on the desk for attention.
"Boys," she said bluntly, "we've got a spy among us."
Instantly every pair of eyes turned on me. I jumped up. My back was in the corner. I bluffed them as best I could.
"What's the matter with you?" I cried. "I didn't ask you to take me in. You came after me. You gave me your work to do. Haven't I done it? Didn't I deliver the goods at Newport? Didn't I undertake a nasty bit of work to-night? Ask Freer there. And now you turn on me!"
"Keep quiet!" commanded Lorina. "You'll have your hearing."
To the men she said: "For a week I've known there was a leak somewhere, and I wanted to test him. I gave him a job out at Amityville, and I sent Freer with him. I had an agent in the house out there. Well, he didn't pull the job off."
"Was that my fault?" I cried. "Ask Freer."
She turned to Freer. "How about it?"