“You contemptible sneak!” burst out Ralph. “So it was your gang that did this?”
“I don’t see any reason to deny it. We wanted him out of the way and sent that message summoning him to Montreal. Once there, our agents saw to it that he was put where he wouldn’t trouble us for a while.”
Words failed Ralph utterly. He saw red for a minute. But almost simultaneously he steadied his nerves to meet the crisis.
“I may as well tell you, Malvin,” he said, “that it will pay you better in the long run to desert these men with whom you are associated and array yourself upon the side of law and order. Do this and I’ll promise you that, when the authorities descend upon you, I will do what I can to make things easier for you.”
It was a forlorn hope and—it failed.
Malvin hesitated for one instant, and Ralph’s mind swung pendulum-wise between hope and apprehension. But the man’s next words showed him that Malvin was irrevocably tied to the diamond smugglers.
“As if I’d be fool enough to listen to such stuff!” he sneered. “Come now, youngster; no more nonsense. We know what your two chums went ashore for. To get the authorities, didn’t they?”
“Since you must have it, they did,” shot out Ralph.
“I thought so. We know every move you have made. Now you’re going to learn that it doesn’t pay to butt in where you are not wanted.”
“What are you going to do?” demanded Ralph.