girl did not take
kindly to the idea of being tamely put to sleep without as much as one
bid for freedom. She felt that once Mrs. Vandemeyer gave them the slip,
the last hope of finding Tommy would be gone.

Tuppence was quick in her mental processes. All these reflections
passed through her mind in a flash, and she saw where a chance, a very
problematical chance, lay, and she determined to risk all in one supreme
effort.

Accordingly, she lurched suddenly off the bed and fell on her knees
before Mrs. Vandemeyer, clutching her skirts frantically.

"I don't believe it," she moaned. "It's poison--I know it's poison.
Oh, don't make me drink it"--her voice rose to a shriek--"don't make me
drink it!"

Mrs. Vandemeyer, glass in hand, looked down with a curling lip at this
sudden collapse.

"Get up, you little idiot! Don't go on drivelling there. How you ever
had the nerve to play your part as you did I can't think." She stamped
her foot. "Get up, I say."

But Tuppence continued to cling and sob, interjecting her sobs with
incoherent appeals for mercy. Every minute gained was to the good.
Moreover, as she grovelled, she moved imperceptibly nearer to her
objective.

Mrs. Vandemeyer gave a sharp impatient exclamation, and jerked the girl
to her knees.

"Drink it at once!" Imperiously she pressed the glass to the girl's
lips.

Tuppence gave one last despairing moan.

"You swear it won't hurt me?" she temporized.

"Of course it won't hurt you. Don't be a fool."

"Will you swear it?"

"Yes, yes," said the other impatiently. "I swear it."

Tuppence raised a trembling left hand to the glass.

"Very well." Her mouth opened meekly.

Mrs. Vandemeyer gave a sigh of relief, off her guard for the moment.
Then, quick as a flash, Tuppence jerked the glass upward as hard as she
could. The fluid in it splashed into Mrs. Vandemeyer's face, and during
her momentary gasp, Tuppence's right hand shot out and grasped the
revolver where it lay on the edge of the washstand. The next moment
she had sprung back a pace, and the revolver pointed straight at Mrs.
Vandemeyer's heart, with no unsteadiness in the hand that held it.

In the moment of victory, Tuppence betrayed a somewhat unsportsmanlike
triumph.

"Now who's on top and who's underneath?" she crowed.

The other's face was convulsed with rage. For a minute Tuppence thought
she was going to spring upon her, which would have placed the girl in an
unpleasant dilemma, sinc