The luck had to turn, hadn't it? Well, it's turned! I've got the White
Moll at last!"

She felt the color leave her face. It seemed as though something had
closed with an icy clutch upon her heart. She had heard aright, hadn't
she?--that he had said he had got the White Moll at last. And there was
no mistaking the mans s sinister delight in making that announcement.
Had she been premature, terribly premature, in assuring herself that her
identity was still safe as far as he was concerned? Did it mean that,
after all, he had been playing at cat-and-mouse with her, as she had at
first feared?

"You--you've got the White Moll?" She forced the words from her lips,
striving to keep her voice steady and in control, and to infuse into it
an ironical incredulity.

"Sure!" he said complacently. "The showdown comes to-night. In another
hour or so we'll have her where we want her, and--"

"Oh!" She laughed almost hysterically in relief. "I thought so! You
haven't got her yet. You're only going to get her--in another hour or
so! You make me tired! It's always in 'another hour or so' with you--and
it never comes off!"

Danglar scowled at her under the taunt.

"It'll come off this time!" he snarled in savage menace. "You hold that
tongue of yours! Yes, it'll come off! And when it does"--a sweep of fury
sent the red into his working face--"I'll keep the promise I made her
once--that she'd wish she had never been born! D'ye hear, Bertha?"

"I hear," she said indifferently. "But would you mind telling me how you
are going to do it? I might believe you then--perhaps!"

"Damn you, Bertha!" he exploded. "Sometimes I'd like to wring that
pretty neck of yours; and sometimes!"--he moved suddenly toward her--"I
would sell my soul for you, and--"

She retreated from him coolly.

"Never mind about that! This isn't a love scene!" she purred
caustically. "And as for the other, save it for the White Moll. What
makes you think you've got her at last?"

"I don't think--I know." He stood gnawing at his lips, eying her
uncertainly, half angrily, half hungrily. And then he shrugged his
shoulders. "Listen!" he said. "I've got some one else, too! And I know
now where the leak that's queered every one of our games and put the
White Moll wise to every one of our plans beforehand has come from. I
guess you'll believe me now, won't you? We've got that dude pal of
hers fastened up tighter than the night he fastened me with his cursed
handcuffs! D