results and the baldly stated means by which those results had eventuated. Papulos knew that he walked on the thinnest of ice; and he splashed whisky into his glass and met Kuhlmann's gaze with a confidence which he did not feel.
'Yeah, dot is true,' Kuhlmann said at length. 'He gets plenty money—plenty enough to split t'ree-four ways.' There was a superfluous elaboration of the theme in that last phrase which Papulos did not like. 'But dot ain't all of it. You hear vot Heimie says. Ven they got him in the house he says to Morrie: 'I came here to kill you.' An' he talks about justice. Vot is dot for?'
'De guy is nuts' explained Heimie peevishly, as if the continued inability of his audience to accept and be content with that obvious solution were beginning to bother him.
Kuhlmann glanced at him and shrugged his great shoulders.
'Der guy is not nuts vot can shoot Irboll right in the court house und get avay,' he exploded mightily. 'Der guy is not nuts vot can find out in one hour dot Morrie has kidnapped Viola Inselheim, und vot can get some fool to take him straight to the house vhere Morrie has der kid. Der guy is not nuts vot can pull out a knife in dot room und kill Morrie, und vot can pull out a gun from nowhere und shoot Eddie Voelsang and shoot his vay past four-five men out of the house mit the kid!'
There was a chorus of sycophantic agreement; and Heimie Felder muttered sulkily under his breath. 'I heard him talkin',' he protested to his injured soul. 'De guy is——'
'Nuts!' snarled an unsympathetic listener; and Kuhlmann's big fist crashed on the table, making the glasses dance.
'This is no time for your squabbling!' he roared suddenly. 'It is you dot is nuts—all of you! In von day der Saint has killed Irboll and Morrie and Eddie Voelsang und taken twenty t'ousand dollars of our money. Und you sit there, all of you fools, and argue of vether he is nuts, vhen you should be asking who is it dot he kills next?'
A fresh silence settled on the room as the truth of his words sank home; a silence that prickled with the distorted terrors of the Unknown. And in that silence a knock sounded on the door.
'Come in!' shouted Kuhlmann and reached again for the bottle.
The door opened, and the face of the guard whose post was behind the grille of the street door appeared. His features were white and pasty, and the hand which held a scrap of pasteboard at his side trembled.
'Vot it is?' Kuhlmann demanded irritably.
The man held out the card.
'Just now the bell rang,' he babbled. 'I opened the grille, an' all I can see is a hand, holdin' this. I had to take it, an' while I'm starin' at it the hand disappears. When I saw what it was I got the door open quick, but all I can see outside is the usual sort of people walkin' past. I thought you better see what he gave me, Dutch.'
There was a whine of pleading in the doorkeeper's voice; but Kuhlmann did not answer at once.
He was staring, with pale blue eyes gone flat and frozen, at the card he had snatched from the man's shaking hand. On it was a childishly sketched figure surmounted by a symbolical halo; and underneath it was written, as if in direct answer to the question he had been asking:
* * *
Presently he returned his gaze to the doorkeeper's face and only the keenest study would have discovered any change in its bleak placidity. He threw the card down on the table for the others to crowd over, and hitched a cigar from the row which protruded from his upper vest pocket. He bit the end from the cigar and spat it out, without changing the direction of his eyes.
'Come here, Joe,' he said almost affectionately; and the man took an uneasy step forward. 'You vas a goot boy, Joe.'
The doorkeeper licked his lips and grinned sheepishly; and Kuhlmann lighted a match.
'It vas you dot lets der Saint in here last night, vasn't it?'
'Well, Dutch, it was like this. This guy rings the bell an' asks for Fay, an' I tells him Fay ain't arrived
