"The other----" He beat his foot on the floor in a nervous tattoo. "I won't consider the other, Adèle, till I have tried all other means. That will have to be the last thing. If I can induce her to marry me she cannot, even if she would, give evidence against us. As for falling in love with her"--he made a quick gesture of scorn--"that is the last thing on earth that I am likely to do. There has only been one woman with whom I have ever been in love. In any case this will be a marriage only in name." As he watched her he congratulated himself that he had struck the right note. Mrs. Gertstein sat with chin cupped in her hand thinking, or rather trying to think. It was a few moments before she spoke. "Is Penelope willing to marry you?" Larry smiled wrily. "I doubt it. But I think with a little persuasion you will be able to overcome her scruples. She will see that there is nothing else for it in time." "I don't see why I should go out of my way to help you in this," she said. "It's your own business, Larry." There was indecision in her voice. The man shook his head as though with amused tolerance at the slow comprehension of a dull child. "My dear woman, it is the business of all of us--of you particularly. She knows much too much. Where will you be, if I am landed in the dock? We have all got to hang together or hang separately. I am not asking you to do me a favour. I am asking you to help save yourself. The prison doors are not far away from you, Adèle. You can take your choice." That threat clinched the matter as Larry Hughes expected it would. With all her futility of brain Mrs. Gertstein had a strong instinct for self-preservation. That alone would smother any lesser feelings she might have, even her hurt vanity or her sense of friendship for the girl who had been loyal to her. Her course was straight in front of her, and in taking it she reckoned nothing of the consequences to anyone but herself. "You are right, Larry," she said. "I'll do all that I can to make her see reason." "Good girl." He stood over her and patted her on the shoulder. "We'll pull things off together yet. You had better go and find her and see what you can do." He laughed quietly to himself as she left the room. She was tied to him too closely now to deliberately play him false. And, he reflected, once he had safely steered his way out of danger from Scotland Yard there might be fat pickings to be made from old Gertstein if he played his cards aright. CHAPTER XXI