Part 17 (2/2)
Who's to prove anything? No cheques have pa.s.sed.”
”Just so,” said Voles.
”I'm glad you see my point,” replied Jones. ”Now if you can't untie a knot, you can always cut it if you have a knife--can't you?”
Voles shrugged his shoulders.
”Well, I said you were a knife, didn't I, and I'm going to cut this knot with you, see my point?”
”Not in the least.”
”I'm sorry, because that makes me speak plain, and that's unpleasant.
This is my meaning. I have to get that property back, or else I will go to the police and rope in the whole gang. Tell the whole story. I will accuse Marcus. Do you understand that? Marcus, and Marcus' daughter, and Marcus' son, and you. And I won't do that to-morrow, I'll do it to-day.
To-night the whole caboodle of you will be in jail.”
”You said you hadn't come to fight,” cried Voles. ”What do you want?
Haven't you had enough from me? Yet you drive me like this. It's dangerous.”
”I have not come to fight. At least not you. On the contrary, when I get this property back, if it turns out worth a million, I'll maybe pay you your losses. You've been paying the piper for Marcus, it seems to me.”
”I have,” groaned Voles.
The two words proved to Jones that he was right all through.
”Well, it's Marcus I'm up against, and you have to help me.”
Then Voles began to speak. The something Oriental in his nature, the something that had driven him rus.h.i.+ng with outspread arms at the constable that evening, began now to talk.
Help against Marcus! What could he do against Marcus? Why Marcus Mulhausen held him in the hollow of his hand. Marcus held everyone: his daughter, her husband, his own son Julian, to say nothing of A. S. Voles and others.
Jones listened with patient attention to all this, and when the other had finished and wiped the palms of his hands on his handkerchief, said:
”But all the same, Marcus is held by the fact that he forms one of a gang.”
Voles made a movement with his hand.
”Don't interrupt me. The head of a shark is the cleverest part of it, but it has to suffer with the body when the whole shark is caught; that's the fix Marcus is in. When I close on the lot of you, Marcus will be the first to go into the jug. Now, see here, you have got to take my orders; they won't be hard.”
”What are they?”
”You have got to write me a note, which I will take to Marcus, telling him the game's up, the gang's burst, and to deliver.”
”Why d--n it, what ails you?” said Voles.
”What ails me?”
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