electric light snapped on at the far side of the room. He saw
a dressing table, an Empire bed covered with green-figured silk, a
pleasant rug on the floor, and, just as he had gathered an impression
of delightful femininity from these furnishings, the girl turned from
the lamp on the dressing table, and he saw--not Caroline Smith, but a
bronze-haired beauty, as different from Bill Gregg's lady as day is
from night.

Chapter Eleven

_A Cross-Examination_

He was conscious then only of green-blue eyes, very wide, very bright,
and lips that parted on a word and froze there in silence. The heart
of Ronicky Doone leaped with joy; he had passed the crisis in safety.
She had not cried out.

"You're not--" he had said in the first moment.

"I am not who?" asked the girl with amazing steadiness. But he saw her
hand go back to the dressing table and open, with incredible deftness
and speed, the little top drawer behind her.

"Don't do that!" said Ronicky softly, but sharply. "Keep your hand off
that table, lady, if you don't mind."

She hesitated a fraction of a second. In that moment she seemed to see
that he was in earnest, and that it would be foolish to tamper with
him.

"Stand away from that table; sit down yonder."

Again she obeyed without a word. Her eyes, to be sure, flickered here
and there about the room, as though they sought some means of sending
a warning to her friends, or finding some escape for herself. Then her
glance returned to Ronicky Doone.

"Well," she said, as she settled in the chair. "Well?"

A world of meaning in those two small words--a world of dread
controlled. He merely stared at her thoughtfully.

"I hit the wrong trail, lady," he said quietly. "I was looking for
somebody else."

She started. "You were after--" She stopped.

"That's right, I guess," he admitted.

"How many of you are there?" she asked curiously, so curiously that
she seemed to be forgetting the danger. "Poor Carry Smith with a
mob--" She stopped suddenly again. "What did you do to Harry Morgan?"

"I left him safe and quiet," said Ronicky Doone.

The girl's face hardened strangely. "What you are, and what your game
is I don't know," she said. "But I'll tell you this: I'm letting you
play as if you had all the cards in the deck. But you haven't. I've
got one ace that'll take all your trumps. Suppose I call once what'll
happen to you, pal?"

"You don't dare call," he said.

"Don't dare me," said the