"What about bluff?
Deny everything.
He can't be sure that he hasn't been misled by a chance resemblance."
Olga shook her head.
"Levitt makes his living by blackmailing women.
He's sure enough."
"The police?" hinted Danahan doubtfully.
Her faint, derisive smile was answer enough.
Beneath her self-control, though he did not guess it, was the impatience of the keen brain watching a slower brain laboriously cover the ground it had already traversed in a flash.
"You don't - er - think it might be wise for you to - er - say something yourself to Sir Richard?
That would partly spike his guns."
The actress's engagement to Sir Richard Everard, M.P., had been announced a few weeks previously.
"I told Richard everything when he asked me to marry him."
"My word, that was clever of you!" said Danahan admiringly.
Olga smiled a little.
"It wasn't cleverness, Danny dear.
You wouldn't understand.
All the same, if this man Levitt does what he threatens, my number is up, and incidentally Richard's Parliamentary career goes smash, too.
No, as far as I can see, there are only two things to do."
"Well?"
"To pay - and that of course is endless!
Or to disappear, start again."
The weariness was again very apparent in her voice.
"It isn't even as though I'd done anything I regretted.
I was a half- starved little gutter waif, Danny, striving to keep straight.
I shot a man, a beast of a man who deserved to be shot.
The circumstances under which I killed him were such that no jury on earth would have convicted me.
I know that now, but at the time I was only a frightened kid - and - I ran."
Danahan nodded.
"I suppose," he said doubtfully, "there's nothing against this man Levitt we could get hold of?"
Olga shook her head.
"Very unlikely.
He's too much of a coward to go in for evil-doing." The sound of her own words seemed to strike her. "A coward!
I wonder if we couldn't work on that in some way."
"If Sir Richard were to see him and frighten him," suggested Danahan.
"Richard is too fine an instrument.
You can't handle that sort of man with gloves on."
"Well, let me see him."
"Forgive me, Danny, but I don't think you're subtle enough.
Something between gloves and bare fists is needed.
Let us say mittens!
That means a woman!
Yes, I rather fancy a woman might do the trick.
A woman with a certain amount of finesse, but who knows the baser side of life from bitter experience.
Olga Stormer, for instance!
Don't talk to me, I've got a plan coming."
She leaned forward, burying her face in her hands.
She lifted it suddenly.
"What's the name of that girl who wants to understudy me?
Margaret Ryan, isn't it?