Page:Keeban (IA keeban00balm).pdf/70

 "I left the money up here," I reminded. "We came up to get it."

"Why don't you, then?"

I turned to the safe and spun the combination. When I touched the banknotes, I thought to compromise with myself, give him some but not all. Like Jerry, he guessed it.

"All or none, Steve," he said.

I gave him all.

"That'll be useful."

"Wait!" I held him.

"Want it back?"

"No. You're sitting in on fate, you said," I went at him. "You know what crimes are going to be committed; then why don't you stop them?"

He laughed. "After I'd stopped the first, wouldn't I soon cease to know? Old Top, a man in my position has rather to pick and choose. He can stop one, perhaps; then let it be a good one! Besides, that's not my business now; I'm getting Keeban. Yet, if certain names get to the top of the board, I'll call you perhaps. On your own wire. Now Hamlet's father's ghost again. G'night, Steve." He left me.

Sometimes, when I thought it over, I believed