“Stop! No! No!” The man’s voice had a note of fear in it now.
The woman’s voice, cursing hotly. A scuffle. A shot that didn’t hit the door.
I hurled my foot against the door, near the knob, and the lock broke away.
On the floor of the room, a man—Quayle—and a woman were tussling. He was bending over her, holding her wrists, trying to keep her down. A smoking automatic pistol was in one of her hands. I got to it in a jump and tore it loose.
“That’s enough!” I called to them when I was planted. “Get up and receive company.”
Quayle released his antagonist’s wrists, whereupon she struck at his eyes with curved, sharp-nailed fingers, tearing his cheek open. He scrambled away from her on hands and knees, and both of them got to their feet.
He sat down on a chair immediately, panting and wiping his bleeding cheek with a handkerchief.
She stood, hands on hips, in the center of the room, glaring at me.
“I suppose,” she spat, “you think you’ve raised hell!”
I laughed—I could afford to.
“If your father is in his right mind,” I told her, “he’ll do it with a razor strop when he gets you home again. A fine joke you picked out to play on him!”
“If you’d been tied to him as long as I have, and had been bullied and held down as much, I guess you’d do most anything to get enough money so that you could go away and live your own life.”