For a second no word was spoken. No movement was made in that room.
All at once, apparently from the feet of the two men, a wild alarmed scream of a woman shot up through the silence, and shook the silence into echoes of chattering fear.
As though a blast had struck the banker's face, it shrivelled up like a withered leaf. Something heavy fell from his hand in the drawer, and he rose slowly, painfully, to his feet.
Farleg rose also, keeping his face in the same relation, and on the same level as the banker's, until the pinched face of the banker stole slowly above the burglar's.
The hands of Grey rested on the table. His eyes were fixed on vacancy. He seemed to be listening intently, spellbound by some awful vision, some distracting anticipation intimately concerned with appalling voices.
Slowly from his lips trickled the whispered words: "What was that?"
"My wife's voice," whispered Farleg. "You thought it was yours. When I told you no one knew, I meant I had no pal. But my wife knows all, and if anything came amiss to me she'd tell all."
"I understand," the banker answered, still in a whisper. The dread was slowly descending from his face, and he made a hideous attempt at a smile.
"I, too," pursued Farleg, "was afraid we might quarrel, and left her there. For one whistle she was to scream out to show she was on the watch. For two whistles she was to run away and call help. Do you see, sir?"
"Very clever. Very neat. You have won the odd trick."