"_Si._" Lopez had never used a politer tone.
"You--you're joking." There was a crack in Pell's voice.
"Joking?"
"You must be!" huskily. "I thought so all along--now I'm sure of it."
The bandit faced him, and threw his cigarette over his shoulder in the
chimney-place. "Do I look like a joker?"
"You sit there, like that, and talk of killing me in cold blood?"
Lopez took him in through half-closed lids. "I do not like you. Nobody like
you. Alive, you are no good. Dead, you make two people which I love 'appy.
You get me, Senor Wall Street?"
"Oh, I see," cried Pell, wildly, and doing his best to keep his legs from
giving way, "you would kill me so that my wife can marry this Gilbert
Jones?" A sickly smile curled around his mouth.
Lopez nodded. "_Si, senor._"
"If that's all, I'll give her a divorce!"
"You weel give her a divorce?" Lopez repeated, pretending to be much
interested and pleased.
Pell saw a gleam of hope through the darkness of this moment. "Yes," came
breathlessly from him. "Then she can marry him. Don't you see? If that's
all you want--he can have her." He was shaking now in every limb. Escape
was almost his. He knew he could not be done away with.
Pages:
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191