Bookie Skarvan, in an access of fear, mopped at his wet face, and his little red-rimmed eyes, like the eyes of a cornered rat, darted swift, frantic glances in all directions around the room.
“Dave, do you hear!” Bookie Skarvan's voice rose thin and squealing. “Why don't you answer? Do you hear! What—what are you going to do?”
“It's queer, kind of queer, to find you here, Bookie,” said Dave Henderson evenly. “I guess there's a God—Bookie. How did you get here—from San Francisco?”
Bookie Skarvan licked at his dry lips, and cowered back from the revolver that was suddenly outflung in Dave Henderson's hand.
“I—I followed the girl. I thought you'd opened up to the old man, and he'd bumped you off with that bomb to get the stuff for himself. I was sure of it when he died, and she beat it for here.”
“And to-night?” Dave Henderson's voice was rasping now.
“I got the room opposite hers.” Bookie Skarvan gulped heavily; his eyes were fixed, staring now, as though fascinated by the revolver muzzle. “She came downstairs. I followed her, but I don't know where she went to. I saw the package go into the safe. I could see through the fanlight over the door. I saw him”—Bookie Skarvan's hand jerked out toward the huddled form on the floor—“I saw him put it there.” Mechanically, Dave Henderson's eyes followed the gesture—and narrowed for an instant in a puzzled, startled way. Had that dead man there moved? The body seemed slightly nearer to the head of the bed!' Fancy! Imagination! He hadn't marked the exact position of the body to begin with, and it was still huddled, still inert, still in the same sprawled, contorted position. His eyes reverted to Bookie Skarvan.
“You had a man in here with you at work on that safe, a man you called Maggot, and you sent him, with that dirty brand of trickery of yours, to bring back some one you called Cunny the Scorpion, with the idea that instead of finding you and the money here—they would find the police.” There was a twisted, merciless smile on Dave Henderson's lips. “Where did you get into touch with your friends?”
Bookie Skarvan's eyes were roving again, seeking some avenue of escape, it seemed. Dave Henderson laughed shortly, unpleasantly, as he watched the other. There was only the door and the window. But he, Dave Henderson, blocked the way to the door; and the window, as he knew through the not-too-cursory examination he had made of it when he had come down the fire escape with the valises, was equally impassable. It had been in his mind then that perhaps he, himself, might gain entrance to Dago George's room through the window—only the old-fashioned iron shutters, carefully closed and fastened, had barred the way.
“Well?” He flung the word sharply at Bookie Skarvan.