The one glimmer of hope to which, as time went on
and one by one other hopes had vanished, he had still clung tenaciously,
had surrendered, too, and gone down before the face of that brutal logic
that weighed neither human agony nor suffering in its remorseless
conclusions. Clarke, it was true, had not yet resumed his former life as
Peter Marre--but he, Jimmie Dale, was forced to admit now that that
meant little or nothing. A thousand and one reasons might account for
Clarke postponing his re-entry into his old life--that the man had
allowed three days to pass proved nothing.
Marre! Peter Marre! Wizard Marre! A smile that held no mirth hovered for
an instant over Jimmie Dale's lips. Yes, he knew Marre, Marre of the
underworld, well! The man was brilliant, clever--and possessed of a
devil's soul! Also Marre, as certainly no other man had ever held it,
held the confidence of crimeland--and crime-land had supplied the tricky
lawyer with his clientele. And so Marre was "Clarke," one of the leaders
of the old Crime Club! Jimmie Dale's smile disappeared, and his lips
drew straight and tight together. It was quite easily understood now.
The returns in a financial sense from such a clientele, large even as
they perhaps might be, were meagre and pitiful in comparison with the
huge sums which, in one way and another, the Crime Club would have
acquired; but the returns in another sense had been vast and of
incalculable value, not only to Clarke, but to the Crime Club as well.
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