“There’s only one thing more—until something begins to crack open.” Billy Kane’s lips had tightened, his eyelids had drooped still lower. It was only a bare fraction of an inch at most—if at all—but it seemed that door had moved again. His words were coming barely above a whisper now. “There’s only one way he can get anything out of those rubies, and that’s through a ‘fence.’ They’re no good to him unless he can cash in. He’ll try to get rid of some of them as soon as he can. How soon depends on how well he knows his way about. But he’s probably slick enough to have got a line on a blind uncle or two. All right! The police, of course, have passed the word down the line, but here’s where we put one over on the police. There’s some of the joints they don’t know—we know them all. Kane might get away from the police there—but he can’t get away from us on that deal. I want every ‘fence’ in New York tipped off that he’s to stall on the job the minute he gets his lamps on a ruby that’s being shoved his way, and that instead of opening up to the police he’s to wise us up on the hop. That’s all for a starter—and now go to it!”
Red Vallon drew in his breath noisily, as though he were sucking at some luscious and juicy fruit.
“Some head, Bundy!” he applauded with undisguised admiration, as he pushed away his chair and stood up. “Sure, we’ll go to it! Karlin’s running the Merxler game to-night; but I’ll start this other thing bumping along on the high gear. What about the reports? Who’ll the boys make ’em to? You? Here?”
It was a moment before Billy Kane answered. It was the one thing he must have, the one thing upon which he was staking everything—an intimate knowledge of the result of every move made in this game that he had initiated, and, beyond that again, it was vital that he, and no one else should control each successive move. But Whitie Jack was gone for the night. In one way he deplored that fact, in another way he was relieved. If it was only imagination, if there was no one crouching there now on the other side of that secret door, Whitie Jack’s presence would not matter, but otherwise—his mind leaped to that other point—if Whitie Jack was not here to perform those very necessary introductions, and Red Vallon’s messengers came, messengers that he would be supposed to know but would not be able to recognize, it would spell almost certain disaster, and——
“There isn’t anything likely to break to-night, Red,” he said deliberately. “If there does you look after it; or if it’s anything very important you come here yourself. I want to get a night’s sleep if I can, I’m feeling pretty rocky. But I ought to be on my feet to-morrow, and in the morning you can swing the whole business over to me, and I’ll run it.”
“Attaboy!” said Red Vallon heartily. “See you in the morning, then.”
Karlin too had risen from his chair.
“Good-night, Bundy!” he said—and grinned. “I pay you the compliment of being the trickiest crook unhung!”
[IX—BEHIND THE DOOR]
The door closed behind the two men. Billy Kane lay motionless, save that, as they climbed to the street and their footsteps echoed back from the stairs, his hand, gripping his revolver, stole silently from his pocket. There was a grim whiteness around his set lips. His ears strained to catch the slightest sound from within the room, and strained to catch the last echo of those retreating footfalls. He dared not make a move until they were well away—out of earshot, say, of a revolver report. If it were fancy, if the movement of that door were only his imagination unhealthily stimulated, and unhealthily preying upon his nerves, he would at least put an end to it in short order now! The steps rang faintly back from the pavement, still more faintly, and were lost. And then Billy Kane spoke—a cold deadly monotony in his voice: