'He can prove nothing."
"Ah, yes he can," she replied. "I paid you in notes. He knows that. He knows that I got those notes from my bank. I suppose you paid them into yours?"
I was a fool to have done so. But all seemed so clear and easy at the time that I had not taken my usual precaution to change them at Cook's into foreign money, and then back into English currency at the bank.
What the woman said was only too true. Thanks to her foolish confession we were both in an uncommonly tight corner.
"Well, what is to be done?" I asked, clasping my hands behind my back.
"Done? What can we do? If I pay him off, he will come to you."
"How much does he want?"
"He will name no fixed price. He laughs in my face and says that he intends that I shall provide him with an income for life."
I pulled a grimace.
"I suppose he'll come to me before very long, eh?"
"No doubt he will. But we must act before that. Dr. d'Escombe. He must not suspect that I have seen you."
"Act. How?"
