“I dunno!” said the gangster indifferently. “I got orders, that’s all. Mabbe some of our crowd piped you off making your play with Dutchy during the last month, and figured two and two made twenty-three—for you; or mabbe one of your own bunch whispered out loud. I dunno! Are you coming across without getting hurt, or aren’t you?”
Billy Kane was moving softly toward the inner door. Savnak had apparently regained his composure. He looked from one to another of his captors, and forced a smile.
“Look here,” he said ingratiatingly, “we’re all in this. Suppose we play fair. I’m willing to split.”
“D’ye hear that, Birdie?” jeered Red Vallon, with a nasty laugh. “He wants a split! Well, give him one—mabbe it’ll help him to get a move on! Twist his pipes a little more—that’s the sort of split he won’t argue over!”
Birdie Rose’s two hands closed with a quick, ugly jerk on Savnak’s throat. There was a gurgling cry.
“Wait!” Savnak choked out. “Wait! It’s—it’s all right, boys.” He rubbed his throat, as Birdie Rose released him. “I know when I’m beaten.” He shrugged his shoulders in a sort of philosophically fatalistic way, and, reaching into his inside coat pocket, threw Vetter’s chamois pocketbook down on the table.
“That’s the stuff!” grunted Red Vallon maliciously. “But seeing it’s you, we’ll just take a look at it to make sure you’re honest!” He picked up the pocketbook, opened it, nodded and chuckled over the gleaming array of diamonds, and closed the pocketbook again. “Well, I guess that’ll be all for to-night, Mister Savnak, and——” His words ended in a sudden gasp.
Billy Kane was standing in the doorway, his automatic covering the men.
“Don’t move, please, any of you!” Billy Kane’s voice, gruffly unrecognizable, was facetiously debonair.
Birdie Rose’s face had gone a pasty white; Savnak, hunched in his chair, stared helplessly; Red Vallon, his jaw dropped, still holding the pocketbook, found his voice.