Page:Rowland--The closing net.djvu/116

100 But I did not read. What Ivan had just said left me with plenty of intellectual food. It was possible, I thought, that he might suspect me of having other ammunition in my magazine than a mere appeal to his sense of fair-dealing, and it occurred to me that if this suspicion bordered on the conviction that I might threaten to expose the gang, the odds were against my getting out of his house alive.

This danger was one that would be increased a thousand times by the arrival of Chu-Chu. Chu-Chu le Tondeur, or M. de Maxeville, as he called himself, was known to the Under-World as being the ablest thief in Europe. His specialty was bank work, usually in the provinces, and his safe opening skill was something marvellous. The most intricate combinations in his sensitive fingers were about as difficult as a game of diabolo. Personally, I detested everything about the man. He was a constitutional assassin. Chu-Chu, the odds being even, would rather kill than not. His favourite weapon was the slung-shot, but he was said to be a man of terrific strength and not long before had killed an agent by a blow on the head with a coup de poing Americain, as they call brass knuckles in France, where, as a matter of fact, they are ten times as much in use as at home. Chu-Chu left a trail of blood behind him wherever he worked. The man had the ingenuity of a Yankee, the cold courage of an Anglo-Saxon, the stealth of a Frenchman, and the remorselessness of a Spaniard. I doubt if there lived a more dangerous enemy to Society. He was a well-educated man, handsome, polished, a brilliant conversationalist, absolutely abstemious in his habits. His