Thaler stood up, said, 'Deal me out,' and walked to the door.
Pete the Finn stood up, leaning on the table with big bony hands, speaking from deep in his chest:
'Whisper.' And when Thaler had stopped and turned to face him: 'I'm telling you this. You, Whisper, and all of you. That damn gun-work is out. All of you understand it. You've got no brains to know what is best for yourselves. So I'll tell you. This busting the town open is no good for business. I won't have it any more. You be nice boys or I'll make you.
'I got one army of young fellows that know what to do on any end of a gun. I got to have them in my racket. If I got to use them on you I'll use them on you. You want to play with gunpowder and dynamite? I'll show you what playing is. You like to fight? I'll give you fighting. Mind what I tell you. That's all.' Pete the Finn sat down.
Thaler looked thoughtful for a moment, and went away without saying or showing what he had thought.
His going made the others impatient. None wanted to remain unti1 anybody else had time to accumulate a few guns in the neighborhood.
In a very few minutes Elihu Willsson and I had the library to ourselves.
We sat and looked at one another.
Presently he said:
'How would you like to be chief of police?'
'No. I'm a rotten errand boy.'
'I don't mean with this bunch. After we've got rid of them.'
'And got another just like them.'
'Damn you,' he said, 'it wouldn't hurt to take a nicer tone to a man old enough to be your father.'
'Who curses me and hides behind his age.'
Anger brought a vein out blue in his forehead. Then he laughed.
'You're a nasty talking lad,' he said, 'but I can't say you haven't done what I paid you to do.'
'A swell lot of help I've got from you.'
'Did you need wet-nursing? I gave you the money and a free hand. That's what you asked for. What more did you want?'
'You old pirate,' I said, 'I blackmailed you into it, and you played against me all the way till now, when even you can see that they're hellbent on gobbling each other up. Now you talk about what you did for me.'
'Old pirate,' he repeated. 'Son, if I hadn't been a pirate I'd still be working for the Anaconda for wages, and there'd be no Personville Mining Corporation. You're a damned little woolly lamb yourself, I suppose. I was had, son, where the hair was short. There were things I didn't like-- worse things that I didn't know about until tonight--but I was caught and had to bide my time. Why since that Whisper Thaler has been here I've been a prisoner in my own home, a damned hostage!'
'Tough. Where do you stand now?' I demanded. 'Are you behind me?'
'If you win.'
I got up and said:
'I hope to Christ you get caught with them.'
He said:
'I reckon you do, but I won't.' He squinted his eyes merrily at me. 'I'm financing you. That shows I mean well, don't it? Don't be too hard on me, son, I'm kind of--'
I said, 'Go to hell,' and walked out.
XX. Laudanum
Dick Foley in his hired car was at the next corner. I had him drive me over to within a block of Dinah Brand's house, and walked the rest of the way.
'You look tired,' she said when I had followed her into the living room. 'Been working?'
'Attending a peace conference out of which at least a dozen killings ought to grow.'
The telephone rang. She answered it and called me.
Reno Starkey's voice:
'I thought maybe you'd like to hear about Noonan being shot to hell and gone when he got out of his heap in front of his house. You never saw anybody that was deader. Must have had thirty pills pumped in him.'
'Thanks.'
Dinah's big blue eyes asked questions.
'First fruits of the peace conference, plucked by Whisper Thaler,' I told her. 'Where's the gin?'
'Reno talking, wasn't it?'
'Yeah. He thought I'd like to hear about Poisonville being all out of police chiefs.'
'You mean--?'
'Noonan went down tonight, according to Reno. Haven't you got any gin? Or do you like making me ask for
