"The emeralds? You haven't them!" cried Kitty, becoming her mother's
daughter, though her heart never beat so thunderously as now. "We
thought you had them!"
Karlov stared at her, moodily. "What is that button for, at the side of
your bed?"
Kitty comprehended the working of the mind that formulated this
question. If she answered truthfully he would accept her statements. "It
rings an alarm in the basement."
Karlov nodded. "You are truthful and sensible I haven't the emeralds."
"Perhaps one of your men betrayed you."
"I have thought of that. But if he had betrayed me the drums would have
been discovered by the police.... Damn them to hell!" Kitty wondered
whether he meant the police or the emeralds.
"Later, food and a blanket will be brought to you. If your ransom does
not appear by midnight you will be taken away. If you struggle we may
have to handle you roughly. That is as you please."
Karlov went out, locking the door.
Oh, the blind little fool she had been! All those constant warnings, and
she had not heeded! Cutty had warned her repeatedly, so had Bernini; and
she had deliberately walked into this trap. As if this cold, murderous
madman would risk showing himself without some grim and terrible
purpose. She had written either Cutty's or Johnny Two-Hawks' death
warrant. She covered her eyes. It was horrible.
Perhaps not Cutty, but assuredly Two-hawks. His life for her liberty.
"And he will come!" she whispered. She knew it. How, was not to be
analyzed. She just knew that he would come. What if he had smiled like
that! The European point of view and her own monumental folly. He would
come quietly, without protest, and give himself up.
"God forgive me! What can I do? What can I do?"
She slid to the floor and rocked her body. Her fault! He would
come--even as Cutty would have come had he been the man demanded. And
Karlov would kill him--because he was an error in chronology! She sensed
also that the anarchist would not look upon his act as murder. He would
be removing an obstacle from the path of his sick dreams.
Comparisons! She saw how much alike the two were. Cutty was only Johnny
Two-Hawks at fifty-two--fearless and whimsical. Had Cutty gone through
life without looking at some woman as, last night, Two-Hawks had looked
at her? All the rest of her life she would see Two-Hawks' eyes.
Abysmal fool, to pit her wits against such men as Karlov! Because
she had been successful to a certain extent, she had overrated her
cleverness, with this tragic result... He had fiddled the soul out of
her. But death!