“I’ll have to go,” I said to McKnight hurriedly. “She knows all about that affair and she’d be a bad enemy.”
“I don’t like her lamps,” McKnight observed, after a glance at her. “Better jolly her a little. Good-by.”
CHAPTER XX.
THE NOTES AND A BARGAIN
I went back slowly to where the woman sat alone.
She smiled rather oddly as I drew near, and pointed to the chair Bronson had vacated.
“Sit down, Mr. Blakeley,” she said, “I am going to take a few minutes of your valuable time.”
“Certainly.” I sat down opposite her and glanced at a cuckoo clock on the wall. “I am sorry, but I have only a few minutes. If you—” She laughed a little, not very pleasantly, and opening a small black fan covered with spangles, waved it slowly.
“The fact is,” she said, “I think we are about to make a bargain.”
“A bargain?” I asked incredulously. “You have a second advantage of me. You know my name”—I paused suggestively and she took the cue.
“I am Mrs. Conway,” she said, and flicked a crumb off the table with an over-manicured finger.