"I tell you one thing, you don't leave here till I'm sure. There's something rotten going on. I smell it. I'm on the track, and I'll never give up—never give up. Right now I've got the mission path watched by my own men. Nobody gets up or down without my knowing it—to-night or ever. D'y' mind that, before I screw the thumbs off you to make you talk?"
It was then that he heard the slight, sobbing breath in his gallery, the rattle of his slatted door that brought him to his feet and bounding across the room. Reaching into the darkness he dragged out the eaves-dropper—whose poor knees had simply given like paper, whose desperate effort to save herself had thrown her against the jamb and betrayed her—Miss Matilda....
"You—!" said Gregson. "You—!"
He dropped her by the threshold and started away from her with spread fingers and fallen jaw. For a time only the sound of his labored breathing filled the silence and the three stayed so, the woman collapsed against a chair, Motauri swaying and winking stupidly and Gregson, struck dumb, incredulous, empurpled at first and then slowly paling. Without a word he spun on his heel, returned to the table and poured himself a drink and tossed it off.
"Respectability!" he said, in the tone of conversation, caught his collar and ripped it loose. "By Heaven!" he cried, and wrung his great hands. "What am I going to do now? What am I going to do?"
His wandering glance lighted on the rope's end on the table-top, and he coiled it in his hand. He began to walk to and fro before them. His face was ghastly, his bloodshot blue eyes were set like jewels. Now he stopped before Motauri and looked him up and down curiously. Laughter took him like a hiccup: laughter not good to hear: but he left off as quickly. He came back and stood over the cowering figure on the floor.
"And you're the thing that was too good for me!"
He let his gaze possess her deliberately, noting each stain and smirch, her disordered dress and loosened hair, and pitiful, staring face.
"Well, you're not too good now," he said, wetting his lips. "No—you're none too good! You'll marry me to-morrow—and you'll crawl on your knees to have me. And that father of yours—that sniveling old hypocrite—he'll crawl to make the lines, if I choose....