yet but he can wait for her if he wants to ——'
'Und so you lets him in to vait inside, isn't it?'
'Well, Dutch, it was like this. The guy says maybe he can get a drink while he's waiting, an' he looks okay to me, anyone can see he ain't a dick, an' somehow I ain't thinkin' about the Saint——'
'So vot are you thinking about, Joe?' asked Kuhlmann genially.
The doorkeeper shifted his feet.
'Well, Dutch, I'm thinkin' maybe this guy is some sucker that Fay is stringin' along. Say, all I do is stand at that door an' let people in an' out, an' I don't know everything that goes on. So I figures, well, there's plenty of the boys inside, an' this guy couldn't do nothing even if he does get tough, an' if he is a sucker that they're stringin' along it won't be so good for me if I shut the door an' send him away——'
'Und so you lets him in, eh?'
'Yeah, I lets him in. You see——'
'Und so you lets him in, even after you been told all der time dot nobody don't get let in here vot you don't know, unless he comes mit one or two of the boys. Isn't dot so?'
'Well, Dutch—-'
Kuhlmann puffed at his cigar till the tip was a circle of solid red.
'How much does he give you, Joe?' he asked jovially, as if he were sharing a ripe joke with a bosom friend.
The man gulped and swallowed. His mouth was half open, and a sudden horrible understanding dilated the pupils of his eyes as he stared at the beaming mountain of fat in the chair.
'That's a lie!' he screamed suddenly. 'You can't frame me like that! He didn't give me anything—I never saw him before——'
'Come here, Joe,' said Kuhlmann soothingly.
He reached out and grasped the man's wrist, drawing him towards his chair rather like an elderly uncle with a reluctant schoolboy. His right hand moved suddenly; and the doorkeeper jerked in his grasp with a choking yell as the red-hot tip of Kuhlmann's cigar ground into his cheek.
Nobody else moved. Kuhlmann released the man and laughed richly, brushing a few flakes of ash from his knee. He inspected his cigar, struck a match, and relighted it.
'You're a goot boy, Joe,' he said heartily. 'Go and vait outside till I send for you.'
The man backed slowly to the door, one hand pressed to his scorched cheek. There was a wide dumb horror in his eyes, but he said nothing. None of the others looked at him—they might have been a thousand miles away, ignoring his very existence on the same planet as themselves. The door closed after him; and Kuhlmann glanced round the other faces at the table.
'I'm afraid we are going to lose Joe,' he said; and a sudden lump of pure grief caught in his throat as he realized, apparently for the first time, what that implied.
Papulos fingered his glass nervously. His fingers trembled, and a little of the amber fluid spilled over the rim of the glass and ran down over his thumb. He stared straight ahead at Kuhlmann, realizing at that moment what a narrow margin separated him from the same attention as the doorkeeper had received.
'Wait a minute, Dutch,' he said abruptly. Every other eye in the room veered suddenly towards him, and under their cold scrutiny he had to make an effort to steady his voice. He plunged on in a spurt of unaccountable panic. 'They's no use rubbin' out a guy for a mistake. If he tried to cross us it'd be a different thing, but we don't know that it wasn't just like he said. What the hell, anyone's liable to slip up——'
Papulos knew he had made a mistake. Kuhlmann's faded blue gaze turned towards him almost introspectively.
'What's it matter whether he crossed us or made a mistake?' demanded another member of the conference, somewhere on Papulos's left. 'The result's the same. He screwed up the deal. We can't afford to let a guy get away with that. We can't take a chance on him.'
Papulos did not look round. Neither did Kuhlmann; but Kuhlmann nodded slowly, thoughtfully, staring at Papulos all the time. Thoughts that
