Alan, thoroughly alarmed for Leslie's safety as well as for his own, begins to wonder how this strange interview is to end. Even if he should summon Leslie, would she come at his call? Yes; he feels sure that she would, remembering her message of the morning. And what may she not say? If he could give her a word, a sign of warning. But those eyes, that are even now bestowing questioning glances upon him, are too keen. He would only bungle. He will try again. "Mr. Grip," he says, "my sister-in-law is already ill from excitement. If we could spare her this interview--" "Sir!" Augustus Grip wheels suddenly, and looks straight into his face while he continues sharply: "My _good_ sir; for your _own_ sake, don't! _You_ should have no reason for keeping a witness in the background." The hot angry Warburton blood surges up to Alan's brow. Realizing his danger more than ever, and recognizing in the man before him a force that might, perhaps, be bought or baffled, but never evaded, he lets his eyes rest for a moment, in haughty defiance, upon the detective's face. And then he turns and walks to the door. "Where do you purpose to conceal yourself?" he asks coldly, as he lays his hand upon the bell-rope. Again Grip looks about him, and then steps toward the cabinet near the window. "What's this," he asks, with his hand upon the closed door. "Will it hold me?" "Yes," replies Alan; "that will hold you." And he pulls the bell. "There's no resisting Fate," he mutters to himself. "At least that fellow shall not see me flinch again, let Leslie entangle me as she may, and as she doubtless will." And then there tingled in his veins a new sensation--a burning desire to seize that most impertinent, vulgar trail-hunter, who was now tugging away at his cabinet door, and send him crashing headlong through the window into the street below. "Ask Mrs. Warburton if she will grant me a few moments of her time," he said to the servant who appeared at the door, which Alan did not permit him to open more than half way. And then he turned his attention to Mr. Grip. That individual, still tugging unsuccessfully at the door of the cabinet, has grown impatient. "It's locked!" he says, with an angry snap. "No,"--Alan strides toward him--"it is not locked." And he adds his strength to that of Mr. Grip. A moment the door hesitates; then it yields with a suddenness which causes Alan to reel, and flies open. In another instant, Grip has pounced upon the luckless organ-grinder, and dragged him into the centre of the room, where he crouches at Alan's feet, the very image of terrified misery, limp and unresisting. "That's a pretty thing to keep hid away!" snarled the now thoroughly angry detective. "I've heard of skeletons in closets, but this thing looks more like a monkey." "More like a sneak thief, I should say," remarks Alan, with aggravating coolness. "And a very cowardly one at that." CHAPTER XXXIX. "WE TWO WILL MEET AGAIN."