Too late to save himself--and yet, if the
Wolf still paid the penalty for murder, did it matter if he were
_convicted_ for the taking of another life than that of Spider Webb! It
was like some grim, retributive proxy! The Spider, at least, had not
been too late--for that!
For a moment longer, Jimmie Dale sat there, staring at the papers in his
hand. They were unsigned, the Spider's name nowhere appeared--the
Spider had been crafty enough to deal only with crimes in which he had
had no personal share. There was nothing, not even handwriting, as the
papers now stood, to intimate that they had emanated from the Spider;
and therefore, in their disclosure, there could be no suspicion in the
Wolf's mind that they bore any relation to this night's work. Nor would
the Wolf, tried for another crime, ever mention this night's work. It
would be the last thing the Wolf would do. The Wolf had double-crossed
the underworld, and the underworld, if it found it out, would not easily
forgive--and even in a death cell, clinging to the hope of commutation
of sentence, the Wolf would never run the risk of his additional guilt
of the Spider's murder leaking out. The role of "Smarlinghue" in the
underworld was safe.
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