“Do you?” asked Joe. “Then you have another think coming. I wasn’t born yesterday, and you needn’t think that the pretended regularity of your transactions can pull the wool over my eyes. I’m not a lawyer, but I have a lawyer friend close to the district attorney’s office, and he’s put me wise to some of the ways the bucket shop keepers circumvent the law. Here’s what you did. You went through the form of making the purchases and sales on the floor of the Exchange so that you could have a comeback if the law got after you. But every time you did it you put through a duplicate selling or purchasing order for yourself on a fictitious account that exactly neutralized the first one.
“You went on with these matched orders through the day, and at the close of business you charged Mr. Varley with the transactions that showed a loss and kept for yourself the ones that showed a profit.”
An unmistakable look of fear came into Harrish’s eyes.
CHAPTER XX
THE MYSTERY DEEPENS
That the broker’s poise was badly shaken was undeniable. He was not talking now to one of the meek lambs that he had been accustomed to shear with such adroitness and dispatch. In the steely glitter of Joe’s eyes he thought he read disaster. In those curt, crisp accents he heard the tolling of what might prove the knell of doom.
He abandoned his suavity of manner and took refuge in bluster.
“All that is tommyrot!” he declared, with a fine pretense of outraged virtue. “My books will show——”
“I know what they would show,” broke in Joe. “They would show that you have been matching orders right along on Mr. Varley’s account. That’s a felony under the law. We could subpœna your books and bring them into court but that would give you immunity. We’ll prove it in another way, for you’re going to get no immunity at our hands, Mr. Harrish. And if you get indicted here, you won’t get off so easily as you did in Chicago.”
A dull flush crept into Harrish’s cheeks.