She was a slender, poorly clad girl, who looked ten years older than she really was. Her dark-brown hair was in disorder, her eyes deeply ringed, but her features were regular and she would have been quite attractive, but for a wan and pinched look that told of dejection, suffering, and more of care and misery than often falls upon one of her years. She also was surprised at seeing Patsy and Kate Crandall, but it appeared only in the sharper glint of her large, expressive eyes, which flashed from one to another, though chiefly at Gridley, with a look of mingled determination and defiance that evinced a fearless spirit in her frail form. Gridley turned to her with lowering gaze, saying harshly: “You’re surprised at seeing others here, ain’t you?” Nancy Nordeck gave him look for look, with her thin gray lips curling contemptuously. She drew herself up a little, replying with a sinister slang that evinced her lack of refinement. “Not on your life, Gridley. I wouldn’t be surprised at any scurvy trick that you pulled off. What d’ye want, now that you’ve brought him and me from the cellar? I’d sooner stay there than be in the same room with you.” “Cut out that lobscouse!” commanded Gridley sternly. “I’m going to show you where you stand, and where these persons stand whom you’ve drawn into this mess. I’m going to force you, or them, to tell me where your double-dealing dad hid that plunder.” “Oh, you are!” Nancy exclaimed derisively. “You’ll get fat trying to force that out of me. You can’t get it out of them, or any one else, for I’ve told no one. I handed you that at first, but it seems you can’t swallow it. I’m the only one who knows where the stuff is planted.” “That is true, absolutely true,” said Maybrick, with habitual dignity. “I don’t know why you have brought this other woman here, but you----” “What you don’t know cuts no ice with us,” Gridley sharply interrupted. “You keep quiet, or I’ll find a way to make you. There’s a bunch of sleuths on this case who may make trouble for us at any moment, and I’m in no mood to mince matters. This infernal jade, if she’s the only one who knows, is going to tell me where to find that plunder.” “Oh, is that so, Gridley?” questioned Nancy, with eyes flashing. “You’ll find it’s so.” “And you’ll find it isn’t,” snapped the girl defiantly. “You put that idea out of your block. It might turn you batty.” “See here, Gridley,” she added, with a sudden display of deeper feeling. “I’ve been a bad egg most of my life. It come to me natural, and my old man forced me into it. He’s dead now, and I stood by alone and saw the last breath go out of him. I’d never seen the like before. I’d never been where one sees the call of death--the call of death! It told me something I never knew before--but no matter what! You wouldn’t know, if I told you--and I couldn’t tell you if I tried.” “See here----”