Mr. Patton listened gravely to my story that night.
“I don’t like it,” he said when I had finished. “Of course the head on the staircase is nonsense. Your nerves were ragged and our eyes play tricks on all of us. But as for the Frenchwoman——”
“If you accept her you must accept the head,” I snapped. “It was there—it was a head without a body and it looked up at me.”
We were walking through a quiet street, and he bent over and caught my wrist.
“Pulse racing,” he commented. “I’m going to take you away, that’s certain. I can’t afford to lose my best assistant. You’re too close, Miss Adams; you’ve lost your perspective.”
“I’ve lost my temper!” I retorted. “I shall not leave until I know what this thing is, unless you choose to ring the doorbell and tell them I’m a spy.”
He gave in when he saw that I was firm, but not without a final protest.
“I’m directly responsible for you to your friends,” he said. “There’s probably a young man somewhere who will come gunning for me if anything happens to you. And I don’t care to be gunned for. I get enough of that in my regular line.”
“There is no young man,” I said shortly.
“Have you been able to see the cellars?”