The view from the gallery was unobstructed. Plegg saw an interior gaudily furnished, a costly carpet, ill-kept and soiled by muddied boots, yellowed lace hangings at the windows, heavy mahogany chairs, scarred and with their leather upholstering chafed and abused, a marble-topped table littered with cigar stubs, an ash tray, a scattered deck of cards and an open box of cigars; the whole lighted by a hanging lamp with a cheap tin reflector.
There were two men in the room and they sat on opposite sides of the table. One was the master gambler; he had selected the one wooden chair in the room, and he sat back with his hands in his pockets, rocking the chair gently on two legs. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and the black, Indian-like hair fell forward in a lock that shaded the coldly staring eyes.
The other man was the “mucker” of the yard watchman’s report, the man Plegg had been following. On the Grillage pay-roll he appeared as Simeon Backus, serving on the day shift as a muck shoveler in the eastern heading of the great tunnel. He sat in one of the upholstered chairs with a deep seat, and his deformities—the lopped shoulder and arms much too long for his body—were accentuated. His face, with its lines half obliterated by a ragged beard, lacked none of the villainous characteristics of the ingrained criminal; beady eyes that would look at nothing steadily, a retreating chin, a thin-lipped, acrid mouth.
When Silas Plegg reached his spying place on the gallery, Dargin was speaking.
“Cut it out, Simmy; cut it all out and get down to brass tacks!” he was growling. “Your hard job in the tunnel isn’t any skin off of me; and you get paid twice for it, at that.”
“What little rake-off you give me for steerin’ the money-burners down here don’t cut no ice with me!” snapped the smaller man. “I’ve got bigger game to-night.”
“Shoot,” said Dargin.
“I’ve got a line on the new boss. Did you know he was down here lookin’ you over the other night?”
“I saw him,” was the brief reply.
“Well, he’s goin’ to run you out—clean up the shop—wipe off the slate.”