“I have little time,” she said, with a curious, spent breathlessness, as if she had been running. “I am Cleo Ridgley, secretary to Hamilton Rook—that is, I was; I am his secretary no longer, but he does not know about it—yet.”
She paused, again with that hard-held breathing, moistening her stiff lips.
“I warned you that day on the train; do you remember? I warned you because I knew Hamilton Rook.... I know him even better now. He meant to kill you, Mr. Annister, and now he schemes—”
“—To use me—is that it?” interrupted Annister dryly; then, at her slow head-shake, he stiffened.
“He would have finished you even after your—agreement—but that is not his way. But he will not make use of you in the way that you think. That careful plan of which he told you—that was just a blind; there are no ranches near enough. The S. S. S.—that, too, was just a part of the story. You see, he wants to keep you here, that is all, until such time as he thinks it necessary to—remove you. But his real motive, his actual plan I know nothing about. I may suspect, but I do not think about it.”
She paused again, her expression rigid, as there sounded a faint, half-audible footfall from the corridor without. It passed.
“He would—kill me—if he knew,” she continued tonelessly. “That warning on the train—I did that at his order. If he could have frightened you off, he would have been satisfied with that, but now, it will be—different, I tell you this on my own account. And now—”she laid a slim hand on his arm—“don’t go to that rendezvous tonight, Mr. Annister. Ellison will be there; you remember him? He was the man who tried to keep you on that train.”
She smiled faintly with her lips, but her eyes were sombre.
“Ellison is Rook’s jackal, just as Rook is—”