The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 348: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

FRESH SCENES AT .THE JETTY ool direction, and as the keen eyes of Kobolt recognized her, he whispered to his comrade, “ It is one of the old ladies belong- ing to the villa, that we carried off to Lausanne.’ “Perhaps, then,’’ immediately suggested Hernani, also ia a whisper, ‘‘ she has had something to do with this murder of the very two men who employed us on that night, the occasion you speak of.”’ “ Well, we have got nothing to do with all that,” said Kobolt. ‘ Let us speak to her.” They accordingly issued forth from beneath the pier and accosted Mrs. Ranger, for she it was. Instantaneously recog- nizing the two men, she at once told them it was they of whom she was in search. Koboit laconically asked what she wanted, and she without much circumlocution proposed to them a certain thing, backing her explanation with the promise of a large reward. The amount thus named was tempting in the extreme, and the villains were not long in closing with her. As a matter of course she said nothing relative to the murders which the fishers of men had just discovered at the jetty, for the simple reason that she knew nought about them, and they did not think it worth while to intimate the subject to her, although in their own minds they felt pretty well convinced she was no stranger to the two dark deeds. In this surmise, however, they were utterly wrong, as the reader is already aware. The interview between Mrs. Ranger and the two fishers of men did not occupy a quarter of an hour. Where the em- ployer in a proposed crime is cool, collected, and determined, and the employed are willing, bribable, and ready, there is no need of many words. Thus was it that the bargain was soon made. An earnest of the price was placed in Kobolt’s hand, a full understanding as to the mode of procedure was entered into, and Mrs. Ranger sped back to the villa, mutter- ing to herself, ‘‘ The remedies I am adopting are desperate, but the position in which I am placed is also desperate. Murder must secure my impunity, and murder will do it.” Thus congratulating herself on the means she had devised and was prepared to carry out, the harridan reéntered the royal dwelling. CORNICLOOL ‘Ss (CO)