He caught her other wrist, and the grip of his two hands
seemed to bite into the bone.
"So you're _that_ kind, too, are you!" he sneered, holding her eyes as
cruelly as he had clutched her wrists. "Keep quiet! Now, you're to do as
I tell you."
(Ely Ives, in describing the watchwoman at the portals of scandal, had
told him that she was susceptible to a properly timed bluff. "A woman
she had slandered once stabbed her; since then you can get her nerve by
a quick attack. Treat her rough.")
She stared at him, fearfully, half-hypnotized.
"Is that the door leading to Bussey's office? Don't speak! Nod."
Dumb and stricken, she obeyed.
"I'm going there. Don't you dare make a movement or a noise. If you
do--I'll come back."
Shifting his grasp, he caught her up and with easy power tossed her upon
a broad divan. From its springy surface she shot up, as it seemed to
him, halfway to the ceiling, rigid and staring, a ludicrous simulacrum
of a glassy-eyed doll. He heard the protesting "ping!" and "berr-rr-rr"
of a broken spring as she fell back. The traverse of a narrow hallway
and a turn through a half-open door took him into the presence of
bearded benevolence making notes at a desk.
"How did you get here? And who the devil are you?" demanded the guiding
genius of The Searchlight, looking up irritably.
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