. I take it the two others
were Enright, here, and Ned Beaton."

He leaned forward, his face set like flint.

"Now see here, Lacy. I know these things. I can prove them by a
perfectly competent witness. It is up to you to answer my questions,
and answer them straight. I've got you two fellows dead to rights
anyway you look at it. If you dare lay hands on me I'll kill you; if
you refuse to tell me what I want to know, I'll swear out warrants
inside of thirty minutes. Now what do you choose?"

For the first time Lacy's eyes wavered, their defiance gone, as he
glanced aside at Enright, who had collapsed in his chair, a mere
heavily breathing, shapeless thing. The sight of the coward seemed to
stiffen him to a species of resistance.

"If I answer--what then?" he growled desperately.

"What is offered me?"

Westcott moistened his lips. He had not before faced the situation
from this standpoint, yet, with only one thought in his mind, he
answered promptly.

"I am not the law," he said, "and all I am interested in now is the
release of Fred Cavendish and Stella Donovan. I'll accomplish that if
it has to be over your dead bodies. Beyond this, I wash my hands of
the whole affair. What I want to know is--where are these two?"

"Would you believe me if I said I did not know?"

"No, Lacy. It has come down to the truth, or your life. Where is
Pasqual Mendez?"

He heard no warning, no sound of movement, yet some change in the
expression of the man's eyes confronting him caused him to slightly
turn his head so as to vaguely perceive a shadow behind. It was all
so quickly, silently done, he barely had time to throw up one hand in
defence, when his arms were gripped as though in a vise, and he was
thrown backward to the floor, the chair crushed beneath his weight.
Lacy fairly leaped on his prostrate body, forgetting his gun lying on
the desk in the violence of hate, his hands clutching at the exposed
throat. For an instant Westcott was so dazed and stunned by this
sudden attack from behind as to lie there prone and helpless, fairly
crushed beneath the bodies of his two antagonists.

It was this that gave him his chance, for, convinced that he was
unconscious, both men slightly relaxed their grip, thus giving him
opportunity to regain breath, and stiffen his muscles for a supreme
effort. With one lashing out of a foot that sent Enright hurtling
against the farther wall, he cracked Lacy's head against a cor