“Wrap it up, Niccolo, and tie a string around it!” snapped Jimmie Dale.
And again, but snarling, cursing now, the man obeyed.
Jimmie Dale’s hand went into his pocket, and came out with his handkerchief. He carried the handkerchief to his mouth, moistened the adhesive side of the gray paper seal, and pressed the handkerchief down upon the top of the parcel.
“It would hardly do for any one to know where the money really came from—would it?” observed Jimmie Dale, and smiled uninvitingly again.
The two men were leaning, straining forward, their eyes on the diamond-shaped gray seal—and into their faces there crept a sickly fear.
“The Gray Seal!” Sonnino stumbled the words.
“Put an outside wrapper around that package!” instructed Jimmie Dale coldly. He watched Sonnino perform the task with trembling fingers; and then, placing the package under his arm, Jimmie Dale backed to the door. There was a key in the lock on the inner side. He transferred it coolly to the outer side—and his voice rasped suddenly with the fury that found vent at last.
“You are a pair of hell hounds,” he said between his teeth; “but you are angels compared with the gang that hired you for this. Well, the game is up! David Archman will settle with them when they face the investigation—and I will settle with you! One night, a year ago, in last January, a certain Fourth Avenue bank was looted of eighteen thousand dollars—do you remember, Laroque? Ah, I see you do! The police are still looking for the man who pulled that job. What would you say, Laroque, would be the sentence handed out for that little affair to a man with, say, your past record?”
Laroque’s lips were twitching; his face had gone gray.
“Fourteen years would be a light sentence, wouldn’t it?” resumed Jimmie Dale, an even colder menace in his voice. “And you remember Stangeist, and the Mope, and Australian Ike, don’t you, Laroque—you remember they went to the death house in Sing Sing—and you remember that the Gray Seal sent them there? Yes, I see you do; I see your memory is good to-night! Listen, then! I have heard it said that Gentleman Laroque, with his gangsters behind him, would stop at nothing where Gentleman Laroque’s own skin was concerned. I have heard it said that where Gentleman Laroque was known he was feared. Very well, Laroque, it is your turn to choose. You can choose between yourself and this ‘Private Club Ring’ who have purchased your services in this game to-night. I fancy you can find a means of inducing Sonnino here to keep his mouth shut; and I fancy that of the two evils—holding young Archman as a club over his father, or of your employers facing their trial and conviction—you can convince the ‘Private Club Ring’ that the lesser, the lesser as regards your risk, say, is to face that trial and conviction. Do I make myself plain—Laroque? It is simply a question of not a word being said of what has happened to-night—or fourteen years in Sing Sing for you! I do not think you will find the task difficult when you add, to whatever arguments of your own you may see fit to employ, the fact that the Gray Seal, if your principals make a move, will expose them for this night’s work on top of what they will already have to answer for. Well—Laroque?”