“Go on, Dave,” he prompted quietly. “I'm listening.”
Dave Henderson restored the weapon to his pocket, and shrugged his shoulders in a way that was eloquent of his own perturbed state of mind.
“I guess you'll get the point in a word or two,” he said slowly. “The story you told me in the pen, and the way you acted for two years made me believe you, and made me think you were straight. Understand? And then that afternoon before you were going out, and I was up against it hard—you know—I told you where this money was. Understand? Well, I had hardly got back to my cell when I figured you had trapped me. If you were straight you wouldn't touch that money, unless to do me in by handing it back to the police, for it would be the same thing as stealing it again, and that would make a crook of you; if you were a crook then you weren't playing straight with me to begin with, since the story you told me was a lie, and the only reason I could see for that lie was to work me up to spilling the beans so that you could cop the loot and give me the slip. Either way, it looked raw for me, didn't it? Well, when I got out, the money hadn't gone back to the police, but it had gone! I swore I'd get you. Don't make any mistake about that, Millman—I swore I'd get you. I didn't expect to meet you here to-night. I called myself a fool even for coming. You were either straight or a crook, and there wasn't much room left for doubt as to which it was. See, Millman?”
Millman nodded his head gravely.
“I see,” he said, in the same quiet tones. “And now?”
Dave Henderson jerked his hand toward the package of banknotes that lay on the table before him.
“I guess that's the answer, isn't it?” he said, with a twisted smile. “There's the hundred thousand dollars there that you pinched from the old pigeon-cote.” He shoved out his hand impulsively to Millman. “I'm sorry, Millman. Shake! I've been in wrong all the time. But I never seemed to get that slant on it before; that you were—a straight crook.”
Millman's gray eyes, half amused, half serious, studied Dave Henderson for a long minute, as their hands clasped.
“A straight crook, eh?” he said finally, leaning back again in his chair. “Well, the deduction is fairly logical, Dave, I'll have to admit. And what's the answer to that?”
Dave Henderson jerked his hand toward the package of banknotes again.