"When I was working like a swine."
"These lumber-jacks. They knew all that in Standing's mind is?"
"No. But I learned it all."
"How?"
The demand was instant, and a surge of force lay behind it.
"Because some I saw. Some I picked up from general talk. And the rest I pieced together because it's my job to think hard when the game's against me. But it don't matter. You know that the things I've told you are right. It's news to you, but you know it's right, because you're thinking hard, and the game's against—you."
"Yes."
The financier's admission was the act of a man who has no hesitation in looking facts in the face and acknowledging them. Idepski's deductions were irrefutable, because the Swede was a shrewd business man with a full appreciation of the man who had lightened his finances by ten million dollars.
For some moments the fleshy face was turned towards the window which yielded the hum of busy traffic many stories below them. His narrow eyes were earnestly reflective, but there was no concern in them. To the waiting man he was simply measuring the threat against him, and probing its possibilities for mischief.
"Yet this fellow. He on the run is—Yes?"