Why can't you go and get it for me?"
"Very neat! And let you slip away while I am gone?"
I saw that he was still uncertain that I was telling him
the truth. It was maddening. And only the Letter itself could
convince him.
"Oh, please try to get it," I cried, almost weeping. "You
can lock me in here, if you are afraid I will run away. And he
is out. I know he is. He is at the Club ball."
"Naturaly," he said "the fact that you are asking me to
compound a felony, commit larceny, and be an accessery after the
fact does not trouble you. As I told you before, all I have left
is my good name, and now----!"
"Please!" I said.
He stared down at me.
"Certainly," he said. "Asked in that tone, Murder would be
one of the easiest things I do. But I shall lock you in."
"Very well," I said meekly. And after I had described
it--the Letter--to him he went out.
I had won, but my triumph was but sackcloth and ashes in my
mouth. I had won, but at what a cost! Ah, how I wished that I
might live again the past few days! That I might never have
started on my Path of Deception! Or that, since my intentions at
the start had been so inocent, I had taken another photograph at
the shop, which I had fancied considerably but had heartlessly
rejected because of no mustache.
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