“Who’s there?” he called. The answer was an anticlimax.
“Gray,” said Gray’s voice dryly. “I say—if you want to send any mail or telegrams, you’d better give them to me. I think they’d be opened, here.”
“I know they would,” Cunningham growled. “But I won’t have anything to go out. Anything else? I’m in bed,” he added as an afterthought.
“No. Nothing else.” Gray’s tone was very dry. Cunningham heard his footsteps retreating.
He silently picked up Stephan’s knife and handed it back. He replaced his pistol in his pocket.
“It’s dangerous to talk here,” he said grimly. “I suppose these partitions are thin. Let me come up to the hills tomorrow. I’ll tell you anything I can to help you. But please don’t kill anybody else until I’ve had time to explain. Don’t you understand that you can’t get away with that sort of thing in the United States? Where did you come from, anyhow?”
Stephan smiled faintly. He ignored the whisper to Maria of a moment before. He suddenly reached over and put his hand on Cunningham’s shoulder.
“Good man,” he said gravely. “We will talk to you, yes. But we will not tell you anything. Come up into the hills tomorrow. We will kill nobody else until you say.”
“But—I tell you you mustn’t kill anybody at any time,” protested Cunningham anxiously. “You can’t get away with it. Don’t you understand?”
“No,” said Stephan. He spread out his hands in a confession of despair. “We do not understand anything! Maria says you are our friend. We need a friend. Else we die. And if you do not help us——”