"Couldn't be better," thought he. "Now if Fellows will stay away long enough, I'll be able to double the boodle I've promised myself." This with a chuckle. Meantime Miss Lee had got in her message. The answer sent her flying toward him. "He's gone! He's gone!" she gasped. "My old, old father! Oh, you wretch! Save him and----" "You save me first," he whispered, and was about to draw her back into the room with the safe, when the outer door opened and a stranger entered on business. Her agony at the interruption and the few necessary words it involved caused the visitor to stare. But she was able to make herself intelligible and to turn him over to one of the clerks, after which she rejoined Johnson, closing the door quietly behind her. His greeting was characteristic. "You waste breath," said he, "by all this emotion. You'll need it to open the safe." "What guarantee have I that you will keep your part of the contract?" she cried. "I sing--the door opens--you help yourself, and you go. That does not restore to me my father." "Oh, I'll play fair. In proof of it, here's my pistol. If on our going out I do not stop with you at the telephone and let you communicate with your father and send my own message of release, then shoot me in the back. I give you leave." Taking the pistol he held out, she cocked it, and looking into the chambers, found they were all full. "I know how to use it," she said simply. Admiration showed in his face. He bowed and pointed toward the tube. "Now for the song," he cried. CHAPTER XVI "_It was not paper I meant to have_" With a bound she took her stand. She was white as death and greatly excited. Watching her curiously, the crafty villain noted the quick throbbing of her throat and the feverish grip on the pistol. "Time is galloping," he remarked. She gave a gasp, opened her lips and essayed to sing. An awful, indescribable murmur was all that could be heard. Stiffening herself, she resolutely calmed down her agitation and tried again. The result was but little better than before. Turning with a cry, she looked with horror-stricken eyes into the unmoved, slightly sardonic face of the man behind her. "I cannot sing! You have frightened away my voice. I cannot raise that note even to save my father's life. I'm choking, choking." Then as she caught the devilish gleam lighting up his eye, she added, "You will never have those thousands! The safe is closed to us both." He laughed, a very low, cautious laugh, but it made her eyes distend with uncertainty and dread. "You fail to do justice to my forethought," said he. "I took this into my calculations. I know women; they can be wicked enough, but they lack coolness. Let me see now what I can do. I cannot sing, but I have a little _aide de camp_ which can."