"You--you've got that letter!"
"Do you think you're up against a piker game!" exclaimed Laroque
maliciously. "Well then, forget it! You didn't have this in your pocket
half an hour before it was lifted by one of the slickest poke-getters in
the whole of little old New York." He was taking a letter from its
envelope and opening out the sheet. "That's the kind of a crowd that's
in on this, my bucko! Listen, and I'll read the letter. It looked
innocent enough when you got it, in view of what I told you about
knowing a man who would lend you the money. But pipe how it sounds with
Sonnino's safe bored full of holes. Are you listening? 'It's all right.
Niccolo Sonnino has got his safe crammed full to-night. Meet me at
Bristol Bob's at eleven. J. Barca.'"
There was silence in the room. Clarie Archman had dropped into a
chair, and had buried his face in his arms that were out-flung across
the table.
Then Laroque spoke again:
"Do you see where you stand--Clarie? Tell your story--and it's the
_story_ that sounds like a neat 'plant' of your lawyer's to get you off.
You only get in deeper with the jury for trying to _trick_ them, see?
Here's the evidence--and it's got you cold.
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