Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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As they started off he turned again to Nosby.

“Hand over that money,” he said.

“You’re going to—”

“I’m going to keep them here while you get Hallie away. Don’t you see that if they got her up in these hills they could ask any amount of money they wanted?”

Nosby paused irresolute. Then he pulled out a thick packet of fifty-pound notes and began to peel half a dozen from the top.

“I want all of it,” snapped Corcoran. With a quick movement he wrested the packet violently from Nosby’s hand. “Now go on!”

Less than half a mile away, the lights of the car dipped into sight. With a broken cry Nosby turned and stumbled off down the road.

Corcoran took a pencil and an envelope from his pocket and worked quickly for a few minutes by the glow of the headlights. Then he wet one finger and held it up tentatively in the air as if he were making an experiment. The result seemed to satisfy him. He waited, ruffling the large thin notes—there were forty of them—in his hands.

The lights of the other car came nearer, slowed up, came to a stop twenty feet away.