“Make yourself at home, please—I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
He entered the inner room of the two-room flat, closing and snapping shut the connecting door behind him. When he came back, which was quite soon, he glanced at the open box. The twelfth capsule, that one which was red-dotted, and one neighboring capsule had disappeared. Isgrid was sitting where he had been seated before Finburg’s temporary withdrawal.
“See this?” resumed Finburg, and he held up what he was holding in his hands. “It’s a nice slick new one that’s never been in circulation. Well, I’ve about made up my mind to slip this bill to you. You’ve been kind to a party that’s in trouble—a party that I’ve had considerable dealings with. He’s grateful and naturally I’m grateful, too. As I understand it, you’re going to keep on being good to this party. He’s in a bad way—may not live very long, in fact—and we’ll both appreciate any little attentions you might continue to show him. But this is a hard world—people get careless sometimes; you can’t always depend on them. Not knocking you or anything, but still I’d like to make certain that you won’t go back on any little promise you might have made to him lately. You get me, I think—just a precaution on my part. See what I’m going to do next?”
From his desk he took up a pair of scissors and with one swift clip of their blades sheared the yellow-back squarely in two across the middle. Isgrid said nothing to this but kept eying him intently.
“Now, then, I put one-half of this bill into my pocket,” proceeded Finburg; “and the other half I’m handing over to you”—doing so. “Separated this way, these halves are no use to anybody—none to me, none to you. But paste them together again and you’ve got a thousand-dollar bill that’s just as good as it ever was. For the time being, you keep your half and I’ll keep my half. I’ll have it right here handy on my person and ready to slip it over to you when the contract that I’ve been speaking of is completed.
“Now, I expect to be seeing our sick friend tomorrow. Tonight I’ll be fixing up a document or two for him to sign and I’m going to take them up to where he is in the morning. I’ll tell him of this little arrangement between us and I’m certain he’ll endorse it. I may not see him again until the twenty-seventh of this month.” He dwelt meaningly upon the date. “It looks as though he couldn’t last much longer than that—not more than a few hours. And on the twenty-seventh, if the prospects are that he’ll pass out within the next twenty-four hours—which, as I say, is the present outlook—I’ll pay him a farewell visit. If everything has worked out right—if you’ve done him any little last favor that he’s counting on—why, he’ll tip me the word while we’re alone together. You won’t have to wait much longer than that for what’s coming to you. Just as soon as he gives me the word I’ll meet you in some private corner that we’ll decide on, and hand you over the other half of your bill. Is everything understood—everything agreeable to you?”
Still mute, Isgrid nodded. They shook hands on it after Isgrid had named a suitable place for their rendezvous on the twenty-seventh; then the silent caller took himself away. All told, he had not contributed a hundred words, counting in grunts as words, to the dialogue.
Being left alone, Mr. Finburg mentally hugged himself before he set to the task of drawing up the papers for his client’s signature. This same Sunday he decided not to go to the governor of that near-by state with any futile plea for executive clemency. He’d tell Scarra, of course, that he was going; would pretend he had gone. But what was the use of a man wasting his breath on a quest so absolutely hopeless? He salved his conscience—or the place where his conscience had been before he wore it out—with this reflection, and by an effort of the will put from him any prolonged consideration of the real underlying reason. It resolved itself into this: Why should a man trifle with his luck? With Scarra wiped out—and certainly Scarra deserved wiping out, if ever a red-handed brute did—the ends of justice would be satisfied and the case might serve as a warning to other criminals. But if that governor should turn mush-headed and withhold from Scarra his just punishment, where would Scarra’s lawyer be? He’d be missing a delectable chunk of jack by a hair—that’s where he would be.
Let the law take its course!
The law did. It took its racking course at quarter past one o’clock on the morning of the twenty-eighth.