Hotchkiss stepped forward once more importantly.
"Which read, I think: 'Man with papers in lower ten, car seven. Get them.'"
Sullivan looked at the little man with sulky blue eyes.
"It was something like that, anyhow. But it was a nasty business, and it made matters worse that he didn't care that a telegram which must pass through a half dozen hands was more or less incriminating to me.
"Then, to add to the unpleasantness of my position, just after we boarded the train—I was accompanying my sister and this young lady, Miss West—a woman touched me on the sleeve, and I turned to face—my wife!
"That took away my last bit of nerve. I told my sister, and you can understand she was in a bad way, too. We knew what it meant. Ida had heard that I was going—"
He stopped and glanced uneasily at Alison.
"Go on," she said coldly. "It is too late to shield me. The time to have done that was when I was your guest."
