“LOOK here,” said Adolph Keller, in the midst of his prattle.
“I’ve taken rather a fancy to this bit of a thing. Suppose you let me
have it. I’ll give you a landscape in exchange; I’ve one or two that
are not so bad, and you shall have your pick. Moreover,” and he fixed
June with a steady eye, “you shall have your sovereign as well.”
She shook her head tensely. Inclination now wished to tell him the
fabulous worth of the picture; but prudence said no. The calculated way
in which he had lied was proof enough that he knew its value already.
She held out her hand. In a voice dry and choking she said: “Please
give it to me. I ought to be going.”
He gazed at her with the eye of a condor. “Much better take what you
can get for it, hadn’t you? It’ll be a difficult thing to sell, you
know. This is quite a fair offer.”
“Give it me, please,” June gasped miserably.
“Don’t be a little fool.”
The tone was like the closing of a door. She knew at once that he had
not the remotest intention of giving it back to her. And what followed
immediately upon the words made the fact only too clear. He laid the
picture on a table some little distance away, and then pouring out a
quantity of spirit he drank it neat. His next act was to produce a case
from which he took forth a pound note.
“Here you are,” he said roughly. “Take this and be jolly thankful. And
then make yourself scarce, as soon as you like.”
It was an intimation that there was going to be no more pretence.
The tone was that of a cynical bully who judged it to be best for
both parties that the owner of the Van Roon should now be given an
unmistakable perception of reality.
Overdriven as June was, the knowledge that at the very last she was
to be robbed of the fruits of her hard-won victory was more than she
could bear. Faced by this man’s cool insolence and mean cunning, she
was swept by a tide of rage. He knew that she could have no proof of
ownership, and he was going to reap a full advantage from the fact. At
that moment, of an unendurable bitterness, she was spurred and lashed
by the same Devil which two hours ago had driven Uncle Si to frenzy.
“The picture’s mine,” she cried hoarsely. And then, advancing towards
the table. “Give it me ... you thief!”
At the ugly word he recoiled a step, but the next instant he grabbed
her by the wrists. In the struggle to get free, she felt his evil
breath upon her face. Many a dram must have gone to so much foulness;
as his powerful grip slowly fastened upon her there came swift
knowledge of a new and more urgent peril.
* * * * *
She was alone with this man in his own flat. Utterly without a means
of defence as she was, she had been mad enough to offer him a physical
challenge. In a few seconds she would be at his mercy. And then,
inflamed by drink, and being the kind of beast that he was he would
insist upon the spoils of the victor.
Before she was fully alive to what was taking place she found herself
forced slowly backwards to the wall. She knew then that she was
fighting for her life, and for that which in this unspeakable moment
implied so much more.
“I’ll teach you to come here, you----!” His face was that of a maniac.
She gave a shriek of terror and lashed out wildly at his shins.
Fighting like a tigress, at first she kept him at bay. The power of his
hands was terrific, but she did not scruple to use the weapons nature
had given her. After a long and horrible minute of claws, teeth and
feet, in the course of which she bit him savagely, it grew reasonably
clear to Adolph Keller that if only she cares to use it, the female of
the species does not lack a means of defence.
“You beauty!” he gasped, as he struggled to shift his grip upon her.
Goaded by the furies he found his way at last to her throat. And then
she felt that he was going to kill her. Moreover, as his madman’s grip
began slowly to distil her life through its fingers, he perceived how
simple a matter it was going to be.