The two men took a step forward, and shrank suddenly back. Birdie Rose’s face had gone gray. He looked wildly at Billy Kane.
“My Gawd!” whispered Red Vallon.
“I said something to you to-night about needing an object lesson, so that it would sink into you that when I said the limit I meant it,” said Billy Kane evenly. “Well, you’ve got it now! Do you know who that man is?”
Red Vallon shook his head. Birdie Rose was nervously plucking at a package of cigarette papers that he had drawn from his pocket.
“His name is Peters,” said Billy Kane curtly. “Peters was the butler at Ellsworth’s. Jackson’s pal. Get me? I found this”—the ruby, from his vest pocket, was lying now in the open palm of Billy Kane’s hand. “Do you understand what ‘limit’ means now, Red? I found this. He wouldn’t talk, and so——” Billy Kane shrugged his shoulders coolly, and his hand jerked forward, pointing to the disordered room. “I hadn’t found any more of them when you messed it up with your noise.”
Red Vallon circled his lips with his tongue.
“Let’s get out of here!” he said hoarsely.
“We’ll have to now, thanks to you!” snapped Billy Kane shortly. “That’s the only room that’s been searched, and you’ve queered any chance of doing anything more now.” He whirled impetuously on Red Vallon, and shook his fist in the gangster’s face. “You see what you’ve done! Even if the police haven’t got wise to the row, those people in the apartments downstairs will call them in the minute they get a chance. Yes, we’ve got to beat it! You and your diamonds are likely to give us a ride by the juice route up in that little armchair in Sing Sing. If your man gets away it’s a small matter now. Anybody that’s caught here will have to stand for—this. You go first, Birdie, and call the crowd off, and scatter the minute you’re outside the house. I don’t want it published in the papers that I was with Peters in his expiring moments! Tumble? I can trust you two, because”—Billy Kane’s smile was unhappy—“if anything leaks, I’ll know where it leaked from! Get the idea? Now, beat it, Birdie! We’ll give you a couple of minutes ahead of us.”
The man went out. Billy Kane walked coolly to the door, took the skeleton key from the inside of the lock, and fitted it again to the outside.
“Come on, Red!” he said.