“This is the way it looks to me,” I told him at last. “You aren’t a killer. I’ll come through alive no matter what happens. All right; why should I swap? You and the girl will be easier to find again than the bonds, and they are the most important part of the job anyway. I’ll hold on to them, and take my chances on finding you folks again. Yes, I’m playing it safe.”
And I meant it, for the time being, at least.
“No, I’m not a killer,” he said, very softly; and he smiled the first smile I had seen on his face. It wasn’t a pleasant smile: and there was something in it that made you want to shudder. “But I am other things, perhaps, of which you haven’t thought. But this talking is to no purpose. Elvira!”
The girl, who had been standing a little to one side, watching us, came obediently forward.
“You will find sheets in one of the bureau drawers,” he told her. “Tear one or two of them into strips strong enough to tie up your friend securely.”
The girl went to the bureau. I wrinkled my head, trying to find a not too disagreeable answer to the question in my mind. The answer that came first wasn’t nice: torture .
Then a faint sound brought us all into tense motionlessness.
The room we were in had two doors: one leading into the hall, the other into another bedroom. It was through the hall door that the faint sound had come—the sound of creeping feet.
Swiftly, silently, Tai moved backward to a position from which he could watch the hall door without losing sight of the girl and me—and the gun poised like a live thing in his fat hand was all the warning we needed to make no noise.
The faint sound again, just outside the door.