"And here," she concluded, without a hint of triumph, even without a special show of interest, "I can't be proceeded against for blackmail. That money, from both of them, was a gift. I hadn't asked for it, much less demanded it. I," she said with an assured arrogance, "hadn't got that far.—So, you see, Mr. Hastings, I'm far from frightened."
He found nothing to say to that shameless but unassailable declaration. Also, he was aware that she entertained, and sought solution of, a problem, the question of how best to satisfy her implacable determination to make the man pay. That purpose occupied all her mind, now that her money greed was frustrated.
It was on this that he had calculated. It explained his going to her before confronting the murderer. He had felt certain that her perverted desire to "get even" would force her into the strange position of helping him.
He broke the silence with a careful attempt to guide her thoughts:
"But don't fool yourself, Mrs. Brace. You've got out of this all you'll ever get, financially—every cent. And you're in an unpleasant situation—an outcast, perhaps. People don't stand for your line of stuff, your behaviour."
She did not resent that. Making a desperate mental search for the best way to serve her hard self-interest, he thought, she was impervious to insult.
"I know," she said, to his immense relief. "I've been considering the only remaining point."
"What's that?"
"The sure way to make him suffer as horribly as possible."
He pretended absorption in his carving.