"Have we sunk to this?" he groaned under his breath, yet Eve caught the
words.
"Wait! You've misunderstood me," she reassured him eagerly. "I don't
want you to--take her life. Only--we must have money, and those jewels
of hers--she doesn't need them. We do. And we're _meant_ to have them,
else why should we have been thrown in her way just at the right moment?
Why should we be now in this lonely house, no one knowing that we're
here? It's Destiny. I saw that when she spoke about the jewel-case.
Didn't you guess what was in my mind?"
"I was past guessing," Dauntrey said. "I had enough to think of without
putting problems to myself."
"It's lucky my brain kept awake. That was why I proposed driving here
instead of coming by train, where somebody might have seen us: that was
why I wouldn't call for the luggage at Mrs. Winter's."
"Do you dream for a moment that if--if there were any inquiry the police
wouldn't be able find out we were in this thing?" Dauntrey asked in
bitter impatience. "How like a woman!"
"I'm not so simple. If we're clever, there won't be an inquiry. And even
if there were any accident, we should be all right. There'd be nothing
against us. And we'd be out of the way before the fuss began. They
couldn't even get at us as witnesses."
"What's in your mind? You talk as if you had some definite plan."
"I have. But it depends on you. Surely with all your knowledge, you know
a drug that can temporarily weaken a person's will? There must be
something that girl could take which would make her willing to follow
our suggestions? She's in such a nervous condition, a sudden illness
would seem quite natural.
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