Page:Frank Packard - The Adventures of Jimmie Dale.djvu/260

266 "Go over there and pick up that check book!" he ordered tersely.

"What for?" Mittel made feeble protest.

"Never mind what for!" snapped Jimmie Dale. "Go and get it—and hurry!"

Once more Mittel obeyed—and dropped the book hesitantly on the desk.

Jimmie Dale stared silently, insolently, contemptuously at the other.

Mittel stirred uneasily, sat down, shifted his feet, and his fingers fumbled aimlessly over the top of the desk.

"Compared with you," said Jimmie Dale, in a low voice, "the Weasel, ay, and Hamvert, too, crooks though they are, are gentlemen! Michael Breen, as he died, told his wife to take that paper to some one she could trust, who would help her and tell her what to do; and, knowing no one to go to, but because she scrubbed your floors and therefore thought you were a fine gentleman, she came timidly to you, and trusted you—you cur!"

Jimmie Dale laughed suddenly—not pleasantly. Mittel shivered.

"Hamvert and Breen were partners out there in Alaska when Breen first went out," said Jimmie Dale slowly, pulling the tin can wrapped in oilskin from his pocket. "Hamvert swindled Breen out of the one strike he made, and Mrs. Breen and her little girl back here were reduced to poverty. The amount of that swindle was, I understand, fifteen thousand dollars. I have ten of it here, contributed by the Weasel and Hamvert; and you will, I think, recognise therein a certain element of poetic justice—but I am still short five thousand dollars."

Jimmie Dale removed the cover from the tin can. Mittel gazed at the contents numbly.

"You perhaps did not hear me?" prompted Jimmie Dale coldly. "I am still short five thousand dollars."

Mittel circled his lips with the tip of his tongue.

"What do you want?" he whispered hoarsely.

"The balance of the amount." There was an ominous