“But they are,” he protested quickly. “She must die before sundown, I tell you.”
“Not if I can prevent it.”
“Then you will forgo the money I have offered you,” he inquired seriously.
“I have no intention of touching a single farthing of it.”
“Until you are forced to.”
“Forced to!” I exclaimed. “I don’t understand your meaning.”
“You will understand one day,” he answered with a grin—“one day when it may, perhaps, be too late. It would be best for us to act in unison, I assure you.”
“For you, possibly; not for me.”
“No—for you,” he said, fixing his crafty, evil-looking eyes upon me. “You have taken one step towards the goal, and you cannot now draw back. You have already accepted your price—twenty thousand pounds.”
“Enough!” I cried indignantly. “If I were to give information to the police regarding this conversation, you would find yourself arrested within an hour.”