She reached out and pressed the electric button which should have rung a bell in her maid's bedroom on the top floor. She kept her finger on the button for ten minutes. It was useless.
"You laid deliberate plans to rob this house," she said, her cheeks pink with indignation. "I am not a bit sorry for you. I shall not let you go! I shall sit here until somebody comes to my assistance, if I have to sit here for weeks and weeks!"
"If you'd let me telephone to my club—" he began.
"Your club! You are very plausible. You didn't offer to call up any club until you found that the telephone was not working!"
He thought a moment. "I don't suppose you would trust me to go out and get a policeman?"
"Certainly not."
"Or go into the front room and open a window and summon some passer-by?"
"How do I know you haven't confederates waiting outside?"
"That's true," he said seriously.
There was a silence. Her nerves seemed to trouble her, for she began to pace to and fro in front of the passageway where he sat comfortably on his chair, arms folded, one knee dropped over the other.