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It was Australian Ike, The Mope, and Clarie Deane that Stangeist had gathered around him, the Tocsin had said and there were none worse in Larry the Bat's wide range of acquaintanceship than those three.
If anything happened to Stangeist, a stab in the dark, for instance, a bullet from some dark alleyway, a blackjack deftly wielded, as only Australian Ike, The Mope or Clarie Deane knew how to wield it the document automatically became a DEATH SENTENCE for Australian Ike, The Mope, and Clarie Deane!
"Yes," said Stangeist easily. "You see I was looking for something like this." Clarie Deane's fist clenched. "You lie!" he choked. "The Mope, here, was the last of us you showed the paper to yesterday afternoon, an' the vaults was closed then an' you ain't been there to-day, 'cause you've been watched.
Stangeist had made himself master of Australian Ike, The Mope, and Clarie Deane and he had driven them a little too hard on the division of the spoils and laughed at them, and cracked the whip much after the fashion that the trainer in the cage handles the growling beasts around him.
It was amazing, without parallel in the history of crime and yet ingenious, clever, full of the craft and cunning that had built up the shyster lawyer's reputation below the dead line. Jimmie Dale's lips were curiously thin now. So it was Stangeist! A Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with a vengeance!
The man had become more than the attorney for the crime world he had become part of it. Cunning, shrewd, crafty, conscienceless, cold-blooded that was Stangeist.
He opened them out, read a few words here and there, and turned the pages hurriedly over to scrutinise the last one and nodded grimly. Three witnesses had testified to the signature of Stangeist, and a notary's seal, accompanied by the usual legal formula, was duly affixed. Jimmie Dale slipped the document into his pocket, and, with the envelope in his hand, moved to the desk.
After all, it did not matter whether Stangeist and the blood wolves he had gathered around him paid the penalty specifically for one particular crime or for another could make little difference they would PAY, just as surely, just as certainly, once that paper was in his possession! Jimmie Dale was counting the houses as he passed they were more infrequent now, farther apart.
"That WAS a bit theatrical, Weasel," he said apologetically; "and yet not wholly unnecessary. You will recall Stangeist, The Mope, Australian Ike, and Clarie Deane, and can draw your own inference as to what might happen in the Thorold affair if you should be so ill-advised as to force my hand.
Beat it on yer toes fer the front of the house!" The room was flooded with light. Through the portieres, that Jimmie Dale parted by the barest fraction of an inch, he could see Stangeist and another man, a thick-set, ugly-faced-looking customer Clarie Deane, according to that brief, whispered colloquy that he had heard outside. He looked again through the window.
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