How did I know that the pair did not have still other weapons, ready to use if I refused?
Striving to find a way out of the trap, I walked over to Ricori. I took the precaution of dropping the
automatics into my pockets as I went. I bent over Ricori. His flesh was cold, but not with the peculiar
chill of death. I examined him once more, minutely. And now I could detect the faintest of pulsation in the
heart a bubble began to form at the corner of his lips-Ricori lived!
I continued to bend over him, thinking faster than ever I had before. Ricori lived, yes. But it did not lift my
peril. Rather it increased it. For if McCann had stabbed him, if the pair had been in collusion, and learned
that they had been unsuccessful, would they not finish what they had thought ended? With Ricori alive,
Ricori able to speak and to accuse them-a death more certain than the processes of law confronted
them. Death at Ricori's command at the hands of his henchmen. And in finishing Ricori they would at the