And so you see, Jimmie,
in one sense at least, I cannot fail! No, I do not mean to speak
lightly--I--I have as much as you, Jimmie--to live for.
"Listen, then! We knew, you and I, that while both my supposed uncle and
the head of the Crime Club were killed that night of the old Sanctuary
fire, and that the greater number, almost all in fact, of the members of
the band were caught by the police, that a few of them still evaded the
trap and escaped. But we believed these were so few in number and were
so thoroughly disorganised that nothing more was to be feared from them.
And this in a very great measure is true; but it is not altogether true.
No, I am not going to tell you that the Crime Club rose from its ashes
and is in operation again; but one of the men who escaped that night,
one of the Club's leaders, possessed evidently of the secret as to where
the Club's surplus funds were hidden, is the man who, through a lavish
use of those funds, is operating now through the underworld, who is
responsible for Forrester's murder, and is the man who through all these
months has sought to reach me. I referred to him as 'one of the
leaders'--I believe him now to have been the most dangerous of them
all.
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