I was on top. I kept my mouth shut. It was up to her to make the plunge. She studied my face for a minute or more before she began:
“I won’t pretend I trust you.” She spoke hesitantly, half as if to herself. “You’re working for my husband, and even the money would not interest him so much as whatever I had done. It’s a choice of evils—certain on the one hand, more than probable on the other.”
She stopped talking and rubbed her hands together. Her round eyes were becoming indecisive. If she wasn’t helped along she was going to balk.
“There’s only the two of us,” I urged her. “You can deny everything afterward. It’s my word against yours. If you don’t tell me—I know now I can get it from the others. Your calling me from the phone lets me know that. You think I’ll tell your husband everything. Well, if I have to fry it out of the others, he’ll probably read it all in the papers. Your one chance is to trust me. It’s not as slim a chance as you think. Anyway, it’s up to you.”
A half-minute of silence.
“Suppose,” she whispered, “I should pay you to—”
“What for? If I’m going to tell your husband, I could take your money and still tell him, couldn’t I?”
Her red mouth curved, her dimples appeared and her eyes brightened.
“That is reassuring,” she said. “I shall tell you. Jeffrey came back from Los Angeles early so we could have the day together in a little apartment we kept. In the afternoon two men came in—with a key. They had revolvers. They robbed Jeffrey of the money. That was what they had