Ives nodded. “I’ve taken care to rub that in. Told him of other cases where the old Major was threatened with all sorts of manhandling; scared out of his wits at first, but always got over it and came back in The Searchlight, taking his chance of being killed. The old vulture really isn’t a coward, though he’s a wary bird.”
“Would Banneker really kill him, do you think?”
“I wouldn’t insure his life for five cents,” returned the other with conviction. “Your editor is crazy-mad over this Mrs. Eyre. So there you have him delivered, shorn and helpless, and Delilah doesn’t even suspect that she’s acting as our agent.”
Marrineal’s eyes fixed themselves in a lifeless sort of stare upon a far corner of the ceiling. Recognizing this as a sign of inward cogitation, the vizier of his more private interests sat waiting. Without changing the direction of his gaze, the proprietor indicated a check in his ratiocination by saying incompletely:
“Now, if she divorced Eyre and married Banneker—”
Ives completed it for him. “That would spike The Searchlight’s guns, you think? Perhaps. But if she were going to divorce Eyre, she’d have done it long ago, wouldn’t she? I think she’ll wait. He won’t last long.”
“Then our hold on Banneker, through his ability to intimidate The Searchlight, depends on the life of a paretic.”
“Paretic is too strong a word—yet. But it comes to about that. Except—he’ll want a lot of money to marry Io Eyre.”
“He wants a lot, anyway,” smiled Marrineal.
“He’ll want more. She’s an expensive luxury.”