“Want to see Whiting?” Coley Coe asked of Webb.
“I do indeed! But you’d better hold me!”
“Stay here, I’ll have him fetched up.”
And so it was in the parlour of the Madison Avenue mansion that the master criminal and his principal victim met.
Whiting was blustering,—bragging. Subdued at first by the defeat that had so suddenly overwhelmed him, he later became cocky and insufferable.
“Hello, Webb,” he jeered. “You’re on top at last,—but I led you a dance! And I achieved my purpose, too! You won’t marry a great heiress after all! You’ve lost your chance!”
“Hush!” and Webb took a step toward him, though warily watched by the two policemen.
“Let him come, I’m not afraid of him,” blustered Whiting.
“No, you coward,” Webb said, “you are not afraid of a man weakened by months of confinement, and suffering from a lamed knee! You are bravery itself! And furthermore, you are beneath even my scorn! I refuse to tell you what I feel for you. I scorn to speak to you at all. Let the police deal with you and all such as you!”
The repressed wrath, the scathing tones, the loathing evident in Webb’s glance made even the depraved Whiting shrivel as if seared with a hot iron. He said nothing and his cocksure manner fell from him, leaving him limp with futile anger.