"Too bad, that!" said he. "Too bad for you that it should have been a
chap of the Vining type."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, sooner or later, he may find out. The chances are that he _will_
find out just what you've done to that girl," Boller went on
contemplatively. "It's just about as she says, too. If he was a fool,
you could fool him, one way or another. Or if he was a little snide,
Anthony, you could talk him off or bribe him off--but it'll never be
like that with Bob. He'll never take any account of the circumstances;
he'll just snatch out the gun and let fly!"

"Rot!" Anthony said thinly.

Johnson Boller's face grew grave and more grave. He sighed and looked
over Anthony's head for a little and then, reaching a decision, he
looked at him suddenly.

"Old chap," he said kindly.

"Well?"

"I don't want to worry you, but perhaps it is better for you to
know--now. And I wish you wouldn't mention it, because Bob told me once,
two years ago, and showed it to me in a sort of burst of confidence."

"Showed you what?"

"Down at the base of his thumb, Bob Vining's got _the murderer's
cross_!" Johnson Boller said huskily.

"Nonsense!" Anthony said sharply.

"It's a fact! The little mark is there, clear as if it had been drawn in
with a knife!" said Mr. Boller. "And for another fact--I don't know
whether you know this or not, but virtually every murderer who has been
executed in the last twenty years in this State, has shown that cross in
some form and----"

He stayed the pleasant flow abruptly. From the direction of David's
doorway a rustle was coming, very softly and cautiously, yet quite
distinctly. It paused in the corridor while Mary drew aside a corner of
the curtain and looked in--and then Mary was with them and asking:

"Is he gone?"

"Yes," Anthony sighed.

"Was he excited while he was here?"

"Not at all, apparently."

"Then he doesn't know yet that I've disappeared," Mary said calmly,
returning to her place at the cleared table. "Isn't he a darling?"

"He is--a very charming fellow," Anthony muttered, thinking of the
murderer's cross.

"Did your man take my coffee away?" Mary pursued.

Silently, Anthony rang for his servitor. Silently, Wilkins brought back
pot and cup and the little plate of toast; and Mary, a very pleasing
little figure indeed, sipped and munched and asked:

"Well, have you determined how I'm to leave?"

Anthony merely stared moodily at her at first. Johnson Bolle