"She is not a detective. I have encountered a few of them and I know the earmarks. Whose game could she be playing?"
"The game of someone with whom we are doing business, perhaps. How can we know?" Ide squeaked. "Remember I 'phoned you only two days ago that I saw her talking with a man up the Drive! She's sold us out!"
"What was she nosing around the house at night for, with an electric torch?" demanded Wolvert savagely. "Is that a usual part of a social secretary's equipment?"
"A torch!" Mrs. Atterbury turned on him in sudden fury. "She told me you had it when she came upon you in the library and you corroborated her story afterward by saying it was yours!"
"I lied," he admitted through set teeth. "This is no time to defend myself or dodge the facts. I'm not the first infatuated ass!"
"Infatuated! A-ah!" Madame Cimmino leaped for him like a tigress, but Welch seized her roughly and dragged her back. "That simpering she-devil with the brand upon her face! For her you have betrayed us all!"
"Cut it out!" Welch admonished roughly. "Forget the sentiment stuff! This is business!"
"I'll make a clean breast of it," Wolvert shrugged. "I suspected her vaguely from the first. There was something about her that baffled me but it fascinated me, too. I had her number from that night in the library, but I thought she was playing a lone hand and I could handle her. I even had a notion I could win her over and get her to go in with us, but she's beaten us at our own game!"
"Not yet!" Mrs. Atterbury rose and even Welch shuddered at the new ominous note in her voice. "Don't forget that something else has taken place beneath this roof since she came. She cannot leave it to bear witness against us! I will go to her and wring the truth from her!"
She mounted the stairs, the others following silently in her wake. The rigid emotionless poise with which she had maintained her domination over them all for years had in a moment been swept aside and the real woman stood revealed in all the nakedness of her sinister malevolent passion.