Very truly yours,
THE COSMOS AGENCY,
Dillon F. Slade, Mgr.
Old Flint read this extraordinary communication twice through, then, raising his head, growled in his shrunken throat, for all the world like a wild beast. His gold tooth, gleaming in the light, made his rictus of passion more venomous, more malevolent still.
"The—the Hell-hound!" he stammered, his eyes narrowed with hate and rage. "Oh, wait! Wait till we land him! And this—this is the devil, the scum, that Kate, my daughter—"
He could not finish; but, clutching at his sparse gray hair, fell to pacing the floor and mouthing execrations. Had he been of the sanguine manner of body, he must inevitably have suffered an apoplexy. Only his spare frame and bloodless type, due to the drug, saved his life, at that first shock of rage and hate.
Grown calmer, presently, he took quick action. Seating himself at a desk in the corner of his bed-chamber—a desk where some of his most important private matters had been put through—he chose a sheet of blank paper, with no monogram, and wrote:
Take immediate action. Will back you to the limit, and beyond. Ten thousand bonus if you land him behind bars inside a week. Stop at nothing, but get results. F.
This he folded and put in an envelope which he addressed to Slade, and was about to seal, when another idea struck him.
"By God!" he exclaimed, smiting the desk. "It won't do to have this just some ordinary charge. The thing has got to be disgraceful, unpardonable, hideous!