第88章 XX A LONE HAND(3)

I figured you would still be over in the garret, and I was going there for you. That's where we're going now. There's no chance at those rajah's jewels now; there's no chance of fixing Cloran so's you can swell it around in the open again - the only chance we've got is to save what we can and beat it!"

She did not need to simulate either excitement or disquiet.

"What is it? What's happened?" she asked tensely.

"The gang's thrown us down!" he said between his teeth. "They're scared; they've got cold feet - they're going to quit. Shluker and Pinkie were with me at the iron plant. We went back to Matty's from there. Matty's with them, too. They say the Pug knows every one of us, and every game we've pulled, and that in revenge for our trying to murder him he'll wise up the police - that he could do it easily enough without getting nipped himself, by sending them a letter, or even telephoning the names and addresses of the whole layout. They're scared - he curs! They say he knows where all our coin is too; and they're for splitting it up to-night, and ducking it out of New York for a while to get under cover." He laughed out suddenly, raucously. "They will - eh? I'll show them - the yellow-streaked pups! They wouldn't listen to me - and it meant that you and I were thrown down for fair. If we're caught, it's the chair. I'll show them! When I saw it wasn't any use trying to get them to stick, I pretended to agree with them. See? I said they could go around and dig up the rest of the gang, and if the others felt the same way about it, they were all to come over to the garret, and I'd be waiting for them, - and we'd split up the swag, and everybody'd be on his own after that." Again he laughed out raucously. "It'll take them half an hour to get together - but it won't take that long for us to grab all that's worth grabbing out of that trap-door, and making our getaway. See? I'll teach them to throw Pierre Danglar down! Come on, hurry!"

"Sure!" she mumbled mechanically.

Her mind was sifting, sorting, weighing what he had said. She was not surprised. She remembered Pinkie Bonn's outburst in the boat.

She walked on beside Danglar. The man was muttering and cursing under his breath. Well, why shouldn't she appear to fall in with his plans? Under what choicer surroundings could she get him alone than in the garret? And half an hour would be ample time for her, too! Yes, yes, she began to see! With Danglar, when she had got what she wanted out of him herself, held up at the point of her automatic, she could back to the door and lock him in there - and notify the police - and the police would not only get Danglar and the ill-gotten hoard hidden in the ceiling behind that trap-door, but they would get all the rest of the gang as the latter in due course appeared on the scene. Yes, why not? She experienced an exhilaration creeping upon her; she even increased, unconsciously, the rapid pace which Danglar had set.

"That's the stuff!" he grunted in savage approval. "We need every minute we've got."

They reached the house where once - so long ago now, it seemed!

- Rhoda Gray had first found the original Gypsy Nan; and, Danglar leading, mounted the dark, narrow stairway to the hall above, and from there up the short, ladder-like steps to the garret. He groped in the aperture under the partition for the key, opened the door, and stepped inside. Rhoda Gray, following, removed the key, inserted it on the inside of the door, and, as she too entered, locked the door behind her. It was pitch-black here in the attic.

Her face was set now, her lips firm. She had been waiting for this, hadn't she? It was near the end at last. She had Danglar - alone.

But not in the darkness! He was too tricky! She crossed the garret to where the candle-stub, stuck in the neck of the gin bottle, stood on the rickety washstand.

"Come over here and light the candle," she said. "I can't find my matches."

Her hand was in the pocket of her skirt now, her fingers tight-closed on the stock of her automatic, as he shuffled his way across the attic to her side. A match spurted into flame; the candle wick flickered, then steadied, dispersing little by little, as it grew brighter, the nearer shadows - and there came a startled cry from Danglar - and Rhoda Gray, the weapon in her pocket forgotten, was staring as though stricken of her senses across the garret. The Adventurer was sitting on the edge of the cot, and a revolver in his hand held a steady bead upon Danglar and herself..