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Updated: May 12, 2025
The car, close up against the curb, stopped once more in a traffic blockade. Smarlinghue was the most vital factor to be considered now, for he caught his breath quickly. Through the open window of the limousine a white envelope fluttered and fell at his feet. The car was moving forward again.
The man addressed touched his lips with the tip of his tongue nervously, shrank back, and made no reply. The lapel of the visitor's coat thrown carelessly back displayed a police shield on the vest beneath; and now, completing a preliminary survey of the surroundings, the man's eyes narrowed on Smarlinghue. "I guess you know who I am, don't you? Heard of me perhaps, too eh?
Yet the Wolf had murdered the Spider, and at the same time had found a basis for his oath to end Larry the Bat, because Larry the Bat had been instrumental in handing over to the police a friend of the Wolf! Smarlinghue slouched on along the street, but the "slouch" covered the ground at an amazing rate of speed. He had not far to go but neither had he a moment that he dared lose.
Was there a way to safeguard Smarlinghue and, yes, this miserable hovel of a place, priceless now as his new Sanctuary. He followed the moonpath's slant with his eyes to where it touched the floor and disclosed the greasy, threadbare, pitiful carpet. A grim whimsicality fell upon him. It would be too bad to lose it! It was luxury to what Larry the Bat had known!
"If they found you out it would be good-night, all right that's what you're getting paid for. But" his voice hardened "if you don't come across, I'll tell you what I'll do to you. I'll " "You can't do anything! Not a thing!" Smarlinghue cried wildly. "You haven't anything on me at all. I've never done a thing, not a single " "Oh, I guess there's enough to make you sweat," Clancy cut in brutally.
That he could play his role in the underworld with only the underworld to reckon with yes; but with the police as well, watching him in his character of a poor, drug-wrecked artist, constantly in touch with him, likely at any moment to make the discovery that Smarlinghue and Jimmie Dale, the millionaire clubman, a leader in New York's most exclusive set, were one and the same no!
He had not dared to light the gas before; dressed, or, rather, undressed, as he was at present, and no longer Smarlinghue, he dared much less to light it now. He tore the envelope open, and, still kneeling on the floor, the flashlight upon the pages, began to read: "Dear Philanthropic Crook: You will be surprised to find this letter in such a place, won't you?
He knew the Wolf well as Larry the Bat in the old days he had even known the other personally as Smarlinghue of to-day he had progressed that far into the inner ring of the underworld again as to be on nodding terms with the Wolf. The man was a power in the underworld and a devil in human guise.
Smarlinghue, still twining his hands in a helpless, frightened way, still circling his lips nervously with the tip of his tongue, followed the other's movements in miserable apprehension with his eyes.
It threatened even to make him forget that he was for the moment Smarlinghue forget what, as Smarlinghue, Smarlinghue dare not forget the role he played. He leaned forward suddenly and caught up his whisky glass whose contents had previously and surreptitiously been spilled into the cuspidor on the floor beside his chair.
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