“There’s another Grosvenor in the building. That’s where the trouble came in, I suppose. Now let me get this straight. You wrote a letter, and somehow or other he got it, and now you want it back. Stripped of the things that baffle my intellagence, that’s it, isn’t it?”
I rose in excitement.
“Then, if he lives in the building, the letter is probably here. Why can’t you go and get it for me?”
“Very neat! And let you slip away while I am gone?”
I saw that he was still uncertain that I was telling him the truth. It was maddening. And only the Letter itself could convince him.
“Oh, please try to get it,” I cried, almost weeping. “You can lock me in here, if you are afraid I will run away. And he is out. I know he is. He is at the Club ball.”
“Naturaly,” he said “the fact that you are asking me to compound a felony, commit larceny, and be an accessery after the fact does not trouble you. As I told you before, all I have left is my good name, and now——!”
“Please!” I said.
He stared down at me.
“Certainly,” he said. “Asked in that tone, Murder would be one of the easiest things I do. But I shall lock you in.”