“Don’t ask me. I hate to think of it.”
Cherry laughed cruelly. “So, failing there, you came back to me, back for another favor from the waif. Well, Miss Helen Chester, I don’t believe a word you’ve said and I’ll tell you nothing. Go back to the uncle and the rawboned lover who sent you, and inform them that I’ll speak when the time comes. They think I know too much, do they?—so they’ve sent you to spy? Well, I’ll make a compact. You play your game and I’ll play mine. Leave Glenister alone and I’ll not tell on McNamara. Is it a bargain?”
“No, no, no! Can’t you see? That’s not it. All I want is the truth of this thing.”
“Then go back to Struve and get it. He’ll tell you; I won’t. Drive your bargain with him—you’re able. You’ve fooled better men—now, see what you can do with him.”
Helen left, realizing the futility of further effort, though she felt that this woman did not really doubt her, but was scourged by jealousy till she deliberately chose this attitude.
Reaching her own house, she wrote two brief notes and called in her Jap boy from the kitchen.
“Fred, I want you to hunt up Mr. Glenister and give him this note. If you can’t find him, then look for his partner and give the other to him.” Fred vanished, to return in an hour with the letter for Dextry still in his hand.
“I don’ catch dis feller,” he explained. “Young mans say he gone, come back mebbe one, two, ’leven days.”
“Did you deliver the one to Mr. Glenister?”
“Yes, ma’am.”