Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/219



OST, thus suddenly deprived of his partner, Urleigh, saw the departure of Delia and Urleigh in the motorboat with a burst of anger to which he had seldom permitted himself to yield. It wasn't the loss of Urleigh that dismayed him. The thing that caught him hardest was what he believed to be the fact that Urleigh and the woman were pals.

"They tricked me," he growled. "They worked Urleigh off on me, to get me. I'm lucky I didn't get killed!"

Convinced that he was a victim of an organized gang of crooks who had tripped down the Mississippi on his trail, he could see many things to prove the theory. First, the woman had appeared and caught him with her wiles, made a first-class case against him, in favour of self-defense, and then shot him down. Instantly she had captured his cabin cruiser with its precious hoard of diamonds. "I'd be'n rich for life!" Cost mourned. "On'y they jobbed me."

He now gripped himself to see what he should do. 213