“She deceived me completely. I asked her some questions about the people who came, especially the patients. I wanted to find out which of them came against their will, but I hoped she wouldn’t see what I was driving at.” A sheep might as well have tried to hoodwink a wolf, was Tarleton’s inward comment, but he thought he had interrupted enough. “She answered all my questions so glibly and seemed so anxious to oblige that I was led on further and further. At last she said, ‘You can see I am a friend, madam; why not trust me? I see you want to know your husband’s enemies and I am willing to help you. This Club is full of them. Every time the doctor comes here I consider he takes his life in his hands.’ “I tried to draw back, but it was too late. She refused to let me go. She said, ‘I must choose between you and your husband, madam. He is my employer, he pays me well, and if anything happens to him you may engage another manageress, and I shall lose my daily bread. If it is your object to preserve him from danger we can work together.’ “She must have guessed pretty well by this time that I had a different object, because she hardly waited for me to answer. Before I could make up my mind what to say, she went on: ‘On the other hand, I have no friendship for Dr. Weathered. Of late I have sometimes wished that he were out of the way. The Club would do better without him in my opinion. He is unpopular. And always I am afraid of some terrible _esclandre_--some frightful scene or some exposure that would ruin the Club and perhaps injure my character.’” In spite of the gravity of the situation Sir Frank Tarleton relished Madame’s regard for her character, though he kept his enjoyment to himself. “She meant me to feel that she was on my side, I could see. It seemed to be a pure matter of business with her. She was ready to help me to save my husband or to kill him--it didn’t matter which, provided it was made worth her while. At the same time she let me see that I was in her power. ‘It comes to this,’ she said at last, ‘that if you are not going to trust me I can’t afford to trust you. You may have come here to pump me, to find out if I deserve your husband’s confidence. In that case I must report this conversation to him for my own protection; I expect you to see that, madam.’” It was all so clever, as clever as the advertisement about the letters, Tarleton reflected. He did not wonder that Mrs. Neobard had been overmatched. “In the end I had to give in to her. I saw no way out, and it looked as if she would be perfectly willing to help me on her own terms. I undertook to transfer the whole property in the Domino Club to her on my husband’s death, and she undertook to find one of his victims who hated him enough to kill him, if he could do it safely, and give him the secret poison. No one was to know where she had obtained it.