I shook my head at her. “Oh yes, you will. Now listen, I’ll be back tomorrow night. I’m taking the boat, and you’re to stay near the house. You’ve the rifle and enough food. You keep your ears and eyes open, and you’ll be all right. If anyone comes, lock yourself in the house. They won’t get at you, if you use your head. But no one will come.”
“Suppose you don’t come back?” she asked, her lips trembling.
“You’ll still be all right,” I said. “I’m leaving you seventeen grand. Go to Mac. He’ll get you back to New York somehow. I’ll drop in and talk it over with him.”
“No,” she said, “don’t do that. I’d rather no one knows I’m alone.”
That made sense.
“But you mustn’t leave me.” She pressed her face against mine. “I don’t want to lose you now I’ve just found you.”
We argued back and forth, but I was going anyway. She got the idea at last, and stopped trying to persuade me. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, looking scared and sad.
“All right,” she said.
“Herrick knew something important. It was so important that they killed him,” I said. “Can you think what it could have been?”
She shook her head. “I hardly knew him. He used to come to the Casino, but I never spoke to him.”