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Once more Mittel obeyed and dropped the book hesitantly on the desk. Jimmie Dale stared silently, insolently, contemptuously at the other. Mittel stirred uneasily, sat down, shifted his feet, and his fingers fumbled aimlessly over the top of the desk. "Compared with you," said Jimmie Dale, in a low voice, "the Weasel, ay, and Hamvert, too, crooks though they are, are gentlemen!
I have ten of it here, contributed by the Weasel and Hamvert; and you will, I think, recognise therein a certain element of poetic justice but I am still short five thousand dollars." Jimmie Dale removed the cover from the tin can. Mittel gazed at the contents numbly. "You perhaps did not hear me?" prompted Jimmie Dale coldly. "I am still short five thousand dollars."
The other was a short, thickset, heavy-jowled man, with a great shock of sandy hair, and small black eyes that looked furtively out from overhanging, bushy eyebrows. "Well," Hamvert was saying, "the details are your concern. What I want is results. We won't waste time. You're to be back here by daylight only see that there's no come-back." "Leave it to me!" returned the Weasel, with assurance.
He was to come out here then, receive the map from you in exchange for your share of the money, return to Hamvert with the map, and receive in turn his own share. I might say that Hamvert actually paid down the advance and it was perhaps unfortunate for you that you paid such scrupulous attention to details as to cut your own telephone wires!
"Five thousand down," said Hamvert, pushing a pile of notes across the table, and tucking the remainder back into his pocket; "and the other five's here for you when you get back with the map.
"Right!" agreed Hamvert briskly and from his inside pocket produced a package of crisp new bills, yellow-backs, and evidently of large denominations. "Half down and half on delivery that's our deal." "Dat's wot!" assented the Weasel curtly. Hamvert began to count the bills. Jimmie Dale's hand stole into his pocket, and came out with his handkerchief and the thin metal insignia case.
I quite understand that you have never met Hamvert, nor Hamvert you, nor that Hamvert was aware that you and the Weasel had anything to do with one another and were playing in together but that equally is unimportant. When Hamvert engaged the Weasel for ten thousand dollars to get the map from you for him, the Weasel chose the line of least resistance.
"Hamvert and Breen were partners out there in Alaska when Breen first went out," said Jimmie Dale slowly, pulling the tin can wrapped in oilskin from his pocket. "Hamvert swindled Breen out of the one strike he made, and Mrs. Breen and her little girl back here were reduced to poverty. The amount of that swindle was, I understand, fifteen thousand dollars.
As for Hamvert, he did not know Hamvert, who was a stranger in New York, except that Hamvert had fleeced a man named Michael Breen out of his share in a claim they had had together when Breen had first gone to Alaska to try his luck, and now, having discovered that Breen, when prospecting alone somewhere in the interior a month or so ago, had found a rich vein and had made a map or diagram of its location, he, Hamvert, had followed the other to New York for the purpose of getting it by hook or crook.
It was very simply arranged, however, and to your mutual satisfaction. While you robbed your own house this evening, he was to get half the money in advance from Hamvert, giving Hamvert to understand that HE had planned to commit the robbery himself to-night.
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