The sitting-room wrecked, they went into the next room, leaving the woman, Billie and me standing among the litter. Big Chin and his two guns watched over us.
As soon as the Frenchman and the Kid were out of sight, the woman tried her stuff out on our guardian. She had a lot of confidence in her power with men, I’ll say that for her.
For a while she worked her eyes on Big Chin, and then, very softly:
“Can I—?”
“You can’t!” Big Chin was loud and gruff. “Shut up!”
The Whosis Kid appeared at the door.
“If nobody don’t say nothing maybe nobody won’t get hurt,” he snarled, and went back to his work.
The woman valued herself too highly to be easily discouraged. She didn’t put anything in words again, but she looked things at Big Chin—things that had him sweating and blushing. He was a simple man. I didn’t think she’d get anywhere. If there had been no one present but the two of them, she might have put Big Chin over the jumps; but he wouldn’t be likely to let her get to him with a couple of birds standing there watching the show.
Once a sharp yelp told us that the purple Frana—who had fled rearward when Maurois and Big Chin arrived—had got in trouble with the searchers. There was only that one yelp, and it stopped with a suddenness that suggested trouble for the dog.
The two men spent nearly an hour in the other rooms. They didn’t find anything. Their hands, when they joined us again, held nothing but the cutlery.