Page:Bedford-Jones--The Mardi Gras Mystery.djvu/134

 The heavy features of Gumberts closed in a scowl.

"You tell your boss," he said, "that when it comes to steerin' clear of federal men, I don't want no instructions from nobody! We got every man in this state spotted. Every one that can be fixed is fixed—and that goes for the legislators and politicians clear up the line! Tell your boss to handle the local gov'ment as well as I handle other things, and he'll do all that's necessary. What he'd ought to attend to, for one thing, is this here guy who calls himself the Midnight Masquer. I've told him before that this guy was playing hell with my system! This Masquer gets no protection, see? The quicker Fell goes after him, the better for all concerned"

Chacherre laughed, not without a swagger.

"We've attended to all that, Izzy—we've dropped on him and settled him! The guy was doin' it for a carnival joke, that's all. His loot is all goin' back to the owners to-day. It needn't worry you, anyhow! There was nothin' much to it—jewellery that couldn't be disposed of, for the most part. We couldn't take chances on that sort o' junk."