“Thank you,” she answered gently. “I am not running away. I have never run even when guilty. Is it likely I should try it now?”
Without replying, and with an angry twist of his arm, he turned the key in the lock and flung the door wide.
“Come in, Stebbins. You too, Berry. I want one of you. And Miss Mdevani, I understand, wants the other.”
“I do, Mr. Berry.” Nadia stepped forward and stood near him. “I hereby place myself wholly in your charge. Whether I am guilty or innocent of all of which I am accused has yet to be determined. Until it is determined I am confident you will extend me fair play. Mr. Belknap, I regret to say, is now as assured of my guilt as he recently claimed to be of my innocence. Such variable winds cannot fail but be ill winds for one in my delicate position.”
“Cool and tricky!” thought Berry, putting the room to a quizzical scrutiny. “What a perfectly worded appeal. No male could resist it.” Aloud he said, “I promise you will receive every consideration justified by the circumstances.” And, to Belknap, “I see we _did_ leave them too long alone. The tally mounts! But I take it we have reached the end of the trail. My congratulations. I _thought_ you would come across, and I’m sincerely glad—”
The disturbance on the stairs had moved up and now suddenly intruded itself. Julian Prentice proved to be at its center—pale, disheveled, his tie twisted, his hair up-ended, Julian struggled feverishly with a veritable regiment of cops. His captors were so intent on their prize and on his retention that it would have taken a dozen murders to have shaken their concentration; such is the Force’s strength of character! In spite of everything, even his own nature, Belknap had to smile.
“Who’s this you’ve got? I figured the least you could be doing was bringing in Milton Dorn. What’s Prentice been at to so rouse your righteous wrath?”
“Tryin’ to escape, sir. Ran his car right off’n the premises. We did have a chase, sir! He was doin’ seventy in the fog. It was as good as suicide, sir.”
“A verdict of suicide would be a relief. Come, come, boys, hands off. Can’t you see you’re bothering him? Where were you heading, Prentice, for Times Square?”
Julian, standing free at last, shifted his gaze distractedly from the vibrant, defiant figure of Nadia Mdevani, to Silas Berry standing like an off-stage critic, to Ordway Belknap who looked a general with the puppets at his disposal, to Sydney Crawford lying crumpled and desperately pathetic across the feet of the still form on the bed, and suddenly he trembled uncontrollably from head to foot.