hall light he saw them--she jammed back against the stair-rail
and he with his hands at her throat. His back was to Jan.

"Where is it? Come--give up!" he was saying. Jan could not hear what she
said; but the man took a fresh grip and shook her. "Don't tell me
anything like that! You gave in at last and got the money off him. Give
it up!"

"I did not! I'm not that kind of a woman--not yet. I may be yet if you
keep on--but I'm not yet. And he's not that kind of a man."

"You're not? And he's not? And you an hour in his room with the door
locked! You got money off him! Give it to me!"

"N-no--no!"

"You lie, you--" He shifted his grip to her hair and started to drag her
along the hall.

Jan stepped softly out, reached his arms round Goles's shoulders, drew
them tight against his own chest; and then, holding him safe with his
elbows, he ran his fingers down until they felt the knuckles of the
other's hands. And then he squeezed. With thumb and forefinger of each
hand he squeezed. Jan could pick up a keg of copper rivets with one
thumb and forefinger and toss it across the deck of a ship. And now he
squeezed. Goles hung on. Jan squeezed. The knuckles began to crack.
"G-g-g--" snarled the other and loosed his grip.

Jan relaxed the grip of his thumb and forefinger, swung the man round,
walked to the head of the stairs, raised his left knee, pressed it
against the small of Goles's back, shifted his right hand to behind the
man's shoulders and suddenly let knee and arm shoot out together. In one
magnificent curve, and without touching a step on the way, Goles fetched
up on the lower hall floor.

He stood up after a while and made as if to come back upstairs. As he
did so Jan made as if to go down.

Goles glared up at him.

"So it is you!"

"Yes, it's me," said Jan. "Come!"

"Come? No! But you wait there, will you? Just wait there and see what
happens to you! Wait!" And even as he called that last "Wait!" he was
running for the back stairs.

Jan turned to her. She was sitting on the floor with her back against
the stair-rail. Her knees were drawn up, and with elbows on knees she
was supporting her head in her hands.

"Where is he gone to?" asked Jan.

"I don't know--to get his revolver probably."

Jan bent over to see her face. A great listlessness was all he could
read there.

"Would he shoot? Did he ever shoot anybody?"

"Yes--two. But the police never found out. You'd better get out while
there's tim