The mere idea that her blackmailer was here, in her own apartment, paralysed her. It was an audacity going beyond her worst expectations. She felt as if she must be dreaming the whole thing.

“Ooh, nice place you got here, very nice,” said the woman, admiring her surroundings with obvious satisfaction as she lowered herself into a chair. “Ever so cosy, this is. Look at all them pictures, too. Well, you can see what a poor way the likes of us live. Now you got a nice life here, Frau Wagner, a real nice life.”

And now at last, as she saw the criminal female so much at ease in her own drawing room, the tormented Irene’s fury burst out.

“What do you think you’re doing, you blackmailer? Following me into my own home! But I’m not letting you torture me to death. I’m going to …!”

“Now, now, I wouldn’t speak so loud, not if I was you,” the other woman answered, with insulting familiarity. “That door’s not closed, the servants can hear. Well, that’s no skin off of my nose. I’m not denying nothing, Lord save us, no, after all, I can’t be no worse off in jail than now, not with the sort of miserable life I lead. But you, Frau Wagner, you want to go a bit more careful-like. I’ll close that door right now if you really want to let off steam. Tell you what, though, might as well tell you straight out, shouting all them bad words won’t get you nowhere with me.”

Irene’s resolve, steeled for a moment by anger, collapsed helplessly again in the face of the woman’s implacability. Like a child waiting to hear what it must do, she stood there uneasily, almost humbly.

“Well then, Frau Wagner, I won’t beat about the bush. I’m in a bad way, like I told you before, you know that by now. So I need cash down. I been in debt a long time, and there’s other stuff as well. That’s why I come here to get you to help me out with—well, let’s say four hundred crowns.”

“But I can’t,” Irene stammered, horrified by the sum of money, which indeed she did not have in the apartment in ready cash. “I really don’t have that much any more. I’ve already given you three hundred crowns this month. Where do you think I’d get the money?”

“Oh, you’ll do it and no mistake, just you think how. A rich lady like you, why, you can get all the money you want. But you got to do it, see? So think it over, Frau Wagner, why don’t you? You’ll do it all right.”

“I really don’t have it. I’d be happy to give it to you, but I truly can’t get hold of such a large sum of money. I could give you something … maybe a hundred crowns …”

“Like I said, four hundred, that’s what I need.” She spoke brusquely, as if insulted by the suggestion.

“But I just don’t have it!” cried the desperate Irene. Suppose her husband were to come in now, she thought fleetingly, he could come home at any moment. “I swear I don’t have it.”

“Then you better make sure you do.”

“I can’t.”

The woman looked her up and down as if assessing her value.

“Well, let’s see … f ’rinstance, that ring there. Suppose you was to pawn that, it’d fetch a tidy sum. Not that I know that much about joolery, never had none meself … but I reckon you’d get four hundred crowns for it.”

“My ring!” cried Irene. It was her engagement ring, the only one that she never took off, a setting of a beautiful precious stone that made it very valuable.

“Go on, why not? I’ll send you the pawnshop ticket, you can get it back any time you like.