Boyne saw that his bluff had not succeeded. He had to deal with a very perilous situation. A false step might lead them all to the Old Bailey. The pair had evidently been watching them, and were aware that his wife and Ena were both in the flat.
"Well," he laughed harshly, "you both appear to be on the wrong track. Céline has, it seems, suspicions about something which she once overheard. What it was, I do not know, because I wasn't there; but I tell you, both of you, that as far as I care you can go to the devil! I've nothing to ask of you—nothing to fear!
"You really mean that—eh?" cried the lank, bony Frenchman.
"Certainly I do. Clear out—and now at once, otherwise I'll call the first constable and give you in charge for attempted blackmail!" said Boyne, standing erect before him. "We've had foreign blackmailers here before—lots of them—but we've no use for them in London."
"But Madame paid me to say nothing," urged Céline.
"What Madame did does not concern me in the least," he snapped. "She generously gave you something, I believe, because she considered that she had treated you shabbily. That's all!"
An awkward pause ensued.
"Very well," exclaimed Galtier. "We are enemies. Let it be so!
"Of course we are enemies!" Boyne cried in a defiant tone that rather nonplussed the Frenchman.
"Très bien!" he exclaimed.