"Evidently," assented Calendar dryly. "You're a bit of a heavy-handed brute, Stryker. Personally I'm kind of sorry for the boy; he wasn't a bad sort, as his kind runs, and he was no fool, from what little I saw of him.... I wonder what he wanted."
"Possibly," Mulready chimed in suavely, "you can explain what you wanted of him, in the first place. How did you come to drag him into this business?"
"Oh, that!" Calendar laughed shortly. "That was partly accident, partly inspiration. I happened to see his name on the Pless register; he'd put himself down as from 'Frisco. I figured it out that he would be next door to broke and getting desperate, ready to do anything to get home; and thought we might utilize him; to smuggle some of the stuff into the States. Once before, if you'll remember—no; that was before we got together, Mulready—I picked up a fellow-countryman on the Strand. He was down and out, jumped at the job, and we made a neat little wad on it."
"The more fool you, to take outsiders into your confidence," grumbled Mulready.
"Ow?" interrogated Calendar, mimicking Stryker's accent inimitably. "Well, you've got a heap to learn about this game, Mul; about the first thing is that you must trust Old Man Know-it-all, which is me. I've run more diamonds into the States, in one way or another, in my time, than you ever pinched out of the shirt-front of a toff on the Empire Prom., before they made the graft too hot for you and you came to take lessons from me in the gentle art of living easy."
"Oh, cut that, cawn't you?"
"Delighted, dear boy.... One of the first principles, next to profiting by the admirable example I set you, is to make the fellows in your own line trust you. Now, if this boy had taken on with me, I could have got a bunch of the sparklers on my mere say-so, from old Morganthau up on Finsbury Pavement. He does a steady business hoodwinking the Customs for the benefit of his American clients—and himself. And I'd've made a neat little profit besides: something to fall back on, if this fell through. I don't mind having two strings to my bow."
"Yes," argued Mulready; "but suppose this Kirkwood had taken on with you and then peached?"
"That's another secret; you've got to know your man, be able to size him up. I called on this chap for that very purpose; but I saw at a glance he wasn't our man. He smelt a nigger in the woodpile and most politely told me to go to the devil. But if he had come in, he'd've died before he squealed. I know the breed; there's honor among gentlemen that knocks the honor of thieves higher'n a kite, the old saw to the contrary—nothing doing.... You understand me, I'm sure, Mulready?" he concluded with envenomed sweetness.
"I don't see yet how Kirkwood got anything to do with Dorothy."