He took her unresisting hand in his, and under the cover of the tablecloth held it tight.

"That is why I wanted to leave the service," he said, and she looked at him quickly.

"Because you thought that it would mean ruin?"

He smiled.

"No, not that. It would hurt you, that is all. Of course, if such a thing happened I would be obliged to resign."

"And you'd never forgive yourself."

"I wanted to antic.i.p.ate such a happening, and, darling, you've got to face the future without any other illusions."

She winced at the word "other" but he went on, unnoticing:

"Boundary is a tiger. If he thinks there is reason to fear you, he will never let up on you till he has you in his grip. I tell you this," he said earnestly, "that for all the power of the police, for all their organisation and the backing which the law gives them, they may be helpless against this man if he has marked you down for punishment."

"I'm not afraid," she said quietly.

"But I am," said he. "I'm so afraid, that I'm sick with apprehension sometimes."

"Poor Stafford!" she said softly, and there was a look in her eyes which compensated him for much. "But you mustn't worry, dear. Truly, truly, you mustn't worry. I'm quite capable of looking after myself."

"And that's the greatest of all your illusions," he said, half-laughingly and half-irritably. "You're just the meekest little mouse that ever came under the paw of a cat."

She shook her head smilingly.

"But I tell you I'm speaking seriously," he went on. "I'll do my best to look after you. I'll have a man watching you day and night."

"But you mustn't," she protested. "There's no immediate cause for worry."

He saw her to the door of the restaurant and showed her into the taxi-cab which came at his whistle, and she leant out of the window and waved her hand in farewell as she drove off.

Two men stood on the opposite side of the road and watched her depart.

"That's the girl," said Crewe.

CHAPTER XIV

THE TAKING OF MAISIE WHITE

A week pa.s.sed without anything exceptional happening, and Maisie White had ceased even to harbour doubts as to her own safety--doubts which had been present, in spite of the courageous showing she had made before Stafford King. Undeterred by her previous experience, she had made arrangements with another and a more responsible detective agency and had chosen a new watcher, though she had small hopes of obtaining results. She knew his task was one of almost insuperable difficulty, and she was frank in exposing to him what those difficulties were. Still, there was a faint chance that he might discover something, and moreover she had another purpose to serve.

She had seen Pinto Silva once. He had called, and she had noticed with surprise that the debonair, self-confident man she had known, whose air of conscious superiority had been so annoying to her, had undergone a considerable change. He was ill-at-ease, almost incoherent at moments, and it was a long time before she could discover his business.

This time she received him in her tiny sitting-room, for Pinto was somehow less alarming to her than he had been. Perhaps she was conscious that at the corner of the street stood a quietly dressed man doing nothing particular, who was relieved at the eighth hour by an even less obtrusive-looking gentleman from Scotland Yard.

She waited for Pinto to disclose his business, and the Portuguese was apparently in no hurry to do so. Presently he blurted it out.

"Look here, Maisie," he said, "you've got things all wrong. Things are going to be very rotten for you unless--unless----" he floundered.

"Unless what?" she asked.

"Unless you make up with me," he said in a low voice. "I'm not so bad, Maisie, and I'll treat you fair. I've always been in love with you----"

"Stop," she said quietly. "I dare say it is a great honour for a girl that any man should be in love with her, but it takes away a little of the compliment when the man is already married."

"That's nothing," he said eagerly. "I can divorce her by the laws of my country. Maisie, she hates me and I hate her."

"In those circ.u.mstances," she smiled, "I wonder you wait until you fall in love again before you get divorced. No, Mr. Silva, that story doesn't convince me. If you were single or divorced, or if you were ever so eligible, I would not marry you."

"Why not?" he demanded truculently. "I've got money."

"So have I," she said, "of a sort."

"My money's as clean as yours, if it is Solomon White's money."

She nodded.

"I'm well aware of that, too," she said. "It is Gang money, isn't it--loot money. I don't see what good I shall get out of exchanging mine for yours, anyway. It is just as dirty. The money doesn't come into it at all, Mr. Silva, it is just liking people well enough--for marriage.

And I don't like you that way."

"You don't like me at all," he growled.

"You're very nearly right," she smiled.

"You're a fool, you're a fool!" he stormed, "you don't know what's coming to you. You don't know."

"Perhaps I do," she said. "Perhaps I can guess. But whatever is coming to me, as you put it, I prefer that to marrying you."

He started back as though she had struck him across the face, and he turned livid.

"You won't say that when----"

He checked himself and without another word left the room, and she heard his heavy feet blundering down the stairs.

And then she met him again. It was two nights after. She met him in a horrible dream. She dreamt he was flying after her, that they were both birds, she a pigeon and he a hawk; and as she made her last desperate struggle to escape, she heard his hateful voice in her ear:

"Maisie, Maisie, it is your last chance, your last chance!"

She had gone to bed at ten o'clock that night, and it seemed that she had hardly fallen asleep before the vision came. She struggled to sit up in bed, she tried to speak, but a big hand was over her mouth.

Then it was true, it was no dream. He was in the room, his hand upon her mouth, his voice in her ear. The room was in darkness. There was no sound save the sound of his heavy breathing and his voice.