“Jack,” said the King in pained sincerity, “I’m not passing you no chance. Got it down at Small’s. Was shoved for a finner and I took it out of curiosity. Funny sticker, ain’t it? If anybody does make you though, why of course, hand it over. I like my old spark better anyhow.”
Small, be it said, was probably the thriftiest and crookedest fence inside the county, with the headquarters men on the pawnbroker detail taking orders—and percentages—from him, as faithfully as they reported to their captain of detectives. With another of those flits, the King placed back in his own necktie his customary brilliant, taken from his vest pocket. Before Lanagan could offer the other pin back the second time, his companion had left. Lanagan examined the pin critically.
It was a “funny sticker,” round, of gold and the size and thickness of a quarter. The back was plain, fitted with a patent clasp. On the face was a delicate relief of two eagles, heads out. An eye, a ruby for an iris, was in the exact centre. Below the eye were two clasped hands and above, two crossed swords. Woven around the entire design was what he at first took to be a snake, but discovered, on closer scrutiny, to be a rope. It was a delicate and unusual product of the goldsmith’s art.
Lanagan puzzled over it for an hour and then concluded:
“Russian, from the eagles; emblem of a secret order, evidently, from the eye; the clasped hands to signify that an oath has been taken and the axe or the rope is the headsman, or the hangman, for a breach of faith. That sounds plausible. But what particular society does it represent?”
He placed it in his tie and was recalling what he had read about Russian secret societies, when he was bumped violently by a short, swarthy individual who had, unknown to him, been following. As Lanagan straightened up he caught a quick flash, as of a message of tacit understanding, in the other’s eyes, as he gazed straight at the pin. In another moment a black flat wallet, thin and oblong, had been slipped adroitly into his inside coat pocket; a word which sounded like “scoraya” had been whispered in his ear, and the singular stranger had departed to the street to jump aboard a passing car, and disappear toward the ferry.
Lanagan made it a rule to be surprised at nothing, to accept nothing as coincidence not proved so, and to ignore no trifles. He was interested; highly interested, and he wanted to know what “scoraya” meant. That there was a connection between the pin and the wallet was, to him, clear. Possibly “scoraya” might help him.
In Fogarty’s back room, hard by police headquarters, he found Petroff, Russian interpreter in the police courts.
“What does a word that sounds like ‘scoraya’ mean?” he asked.
“It means ‘hurry,’ ‘at once,’ or any such meaning. It is what you Americans say, ‘get a move on,’” said Petroff.