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Then light came to him; he learned of the disaster to the Metropolitan Club and immediately lost faith in Melcher's ability to help him, with the result that when he was finally led to Inspector Snell's office for the third degree he "squealed" promptly.
She felt like a deer cowering in a brake with the hounds working close. Her cover seemed pitifully insecure. Thus far Max Melcher's campaign had worked even better than he had expected; and meanwhile he had employed Jim in assiduously cultivating Robert Wharton and arranging as many meetings as possible between Bob and Lorelei.
Generally known as a loafer, suspected of boosting for so-called 'wire-tappers' operating on upper West Side last spring. Believed to have some connection with more than one blackmailing scheme details available. He figured in recent scandal concerning well-known financier and actress. Of late employed as steerer for Max Melcher's gambling-house, West Forty-sixth Street.
"What did it mean?" queried Jim, with brotherly interest. "Blackmail. The word was written all over it. Melcher's connection with the affair was proof of that; then the way it was handled! Nobody touched it except the Despatch, and, of course, it got its price." "I thought newspapers paid for copy," innocently commented Jim. "Yes, real newspapers; but the gang had to publish the stuff somewhere.
The colorin' of this picter is superb. And so wuz his "Persian Horse Dealers" and others. Mr. Melcher's "Sermon" and "Communion" wuz very impressive, as nateral as the meetin'-housen and congregation at Jonesville and Zoar. In the Holland Exhibit wuz all kinds of clouds painted Clouds a-layin' low in sombre piles, and clouds with the sun almost a-shinin' through 'em.
"We'll be married soon's I pay this check." Fumbling through his pockets, he remembered that his last dollar had gone across Melcher's gaming-table earlier in the evening, and cried in dismay, "Hold on! Nothing doing in the marriage line, after all. I'm bust. Isn't that a burglar's luck? And right on the altar steps, too." "I'll settle everything all the way through," Jim offered, eagerly.
Strange stories were told in the Tenderloin tales of treachery punished and ingratitude revenged. Jimmy knew several young men who appeared out of the East Side at Melcher's signal.
Incidentally the latter managed to reap a considerable harvest from the association, for Bob was a habitual gambler, and the courteous treatment he received at Melcher's place seemed to reconcile him to the loss of any amount of money.
To conceal the tremor of her hand she spread the documents upon her center-table and turned her back to the visitor. An odd rigidity crept over her. When she swung about to speak her voice was harsh, but her defiance had lessened. "I don't understand " "Oh! I guess you do. Anyhow, the whole story's there. You see, Armistead spilled that's why he jumped his bond; he was afraid of Melcher's gunmen.
He's the king of his ward; he keeps a gang of gunmen on the East Side, and he's the worst thug in the city." Lilas substantiated this, giving further details as to Melcher's reputation, and then broke down again, weeping with such miserable abandon that Lorelei for the first time began to doubt her own previous convictions.
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