At last, speaking between his teeth, and in German, he exclaimed, "This
is a pretty state of things, Frau Bauer. You have made more trouble than
you know!"

She stared up at him, uncomprehendingly. "I don't understand," she
faltered. "I did nothing. What do you mean?"

"I mean that you have brought us all within sight of the gallows.
Yourself quite as much as your friends."

"The gallows?" exclaimed old Anna, in an agitated whisper. "Explain
yourself, Mr. Head----" She was trembling now. "What is it you mean?"

"I do not know what it is you have told," he spoke in a less savage
tone. "And I know as a matter of fact that there is very little you
_could_ say, for you have been kept in the dark. But one thing I may
tell you. If you say one word, Frau Bauer, of where you received your
blood money just after the War broke out, then I, too, will say what
_I_ know. If I do that, instead of being deported--that is, instead of
being sent comfortably back to Berlin, to your niece and her husband,
who surely will look after you and make your old age comfortable--then I
swear to you before God _that you will hang_!"

"Hang? But I have done nothing!"

Anna was now almost in a state of collapse, and he saw his mistake.

"You are in no real danger at all if you will only do exactly what I
tell you," he declared, impressively.

"Yes," she faltered. "Yes, Herr Hegner, indeed I will obey you."

He looked round him hastily. "Never, never call me that!" he exclaimed.
"And now listen quite quietly to what I have to say. Remember you are in
no danger--no danger at all--if you follow my orders."

She looked at him dumbly.

"You are to say that the parcels came to you from your nephew in
Germany. It will do him no harm. The English police cannot reach him."

"But I've already said," she confessed, distractedly, "that they were
brought to me by a friend of his."

"It is a pity you said that, but it does not much matter. The one thing
you must conceal at all hazards is that you received any money from me.
Do you understand that, Frau Bauer? Have you said anything of that?"

"No," she said slowly. "No, I have said nothing of that."

He fancied there was a look of hesitation on her face. As a matter of
fact we know that Anna had not betrayed Alfred Head. But that she had
not done so was an accident, only caused by her unwillingness to dwell
on the money she had received when telling her story to Mrs. Guthrie.

The old woman turn