“Certainly,” nodded Badger. “Why not?”
“Wouldn’t you be taking a chance?”
“That you might betray us?”
“Exactly.”
Badger quickly shook his head.
“Not the ghost of a chance, Carter,” he said roundly. “I know you from ’way back. I’d take your word against the national house of congress. It’s up to you, Carter, to——”
“Enough said, Badger,” Nick interrupted. “I never in my life compromised with a crook for my own safety, and I shall not begin with you.”
“But——”
“There aren’t any buts, Badger,” Nick thundered—not without a reason.
His quick ear, close to the wall against which he was leaning, had caught a faint sound, unheard by any of the others—the slight creak of a hinge on the passageway door at the foot of the stairs.