"Don't you!" jeered Laroque. "Well, it looks big enough for a blind man
to see! We've got this robbery wished on you to a fare-thee-well! A
young man who speculates, who uses an assumed name, and runs a private
letter box on Sixth Avenue, and has forty-eight hours in which to square
up his debts or face exposure, has a hell of a chance with a
jury--_not_!"
The boy circled his lips with the tip of his tongue.
"But why--why?" he whispered. "I--I never did anything to you."
"Sure, you didn't!" Laroque's tones were brutally amiable now. "It's
your father. We've an idea that maybe he won't be so keen about going
ahead with that little investigation of the private clubs after we've
put a certain little proposition about his son up to him."
"No, no! No--you won't!" Clarie Archman's voice rose suddenly shrill,
beyond control. "You won't! You can't! You're in it yourselves"--he
pointed his finger wildly at one and then the other of the two
men--"you--you!"
"Think so?" drawled Laroque. "All right, you tell 'em so--tell the jury
about it, tell your father, who is such a shark on evidence, about it.
Sure, I'm in on it with you--but you don't know who I am.
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