“The rats,” she said ingenuously, still smiling.
“I’ve seen but one rat here,” murmured Seagraves in an impersonal tone: “I see it now. It has wings that fold up like an umbrella. It is called a vampire.”
Olga smiled on placidly, even after Joe Seagraves had closed the door on her and was gone.
IN THE language of the man who knotted the noose, Olga, as her kind are certain to do, came at last to the end of her rope.
Conspiracy, blackmail and extortion were at last brought home to her; and it chanced that the same eminent crime expert who had hurried the career of her brother to an inglorious finish was likewise destined to be the instrument of fate in the undoing of Olga.
In time the pursuit narrowed down to the end of a most imperfect day for both quarry and hunters. Then all night, as Brandon and Seagraves gradually drew their web closer and ever closer about the elusive Terrorist, she tricked them at every angle and turn with the cunning of a fox, and it was not until three sleepless days and nights that the two renowned sleuths effected her capture more than five hundred miles distant from the field of her long-continued operations.
“She’ll be as slippery as an eel,” Brandon warned Seagraves, when they were ready to start back with their prisoner. “I’ll never consent to any Pullman for her, even though we ignore the law and handcuff her to the seat. One of us is going to have to keep his eyes on her constantly.”
“Only one of us could sleep at a time, anyhow,” said Seagraves; “and surely we can stand it one more night, don’t you think? Suppose we both sit it out with her.”
They at length did decide to “sit it out” with their prisoner, and with that understanding they took her aboard the train.