“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.