CHAPTER I

THE HAZARD OF THE DIE

Mrs. Holton doubtfully shook her head. "But he won't come," she said; "you can't fool him that way, Tom. He's too clever a man."

Lynch's eyes narrowed a trifle. "Oh, don't think I'm forgetting that," he answered; "on the contrary, that's the very thing I'm taking most pains to remember. It's the very fact that he is a clever man that's going to bring him here, where a stupid man, for love or money, wouldn't dare come on his life."

Mrs. Holton looked puzzled. "But I don't see—" she began.

Lynch leaned forward in his chair. "Look," he said abruptly. "Things can't go on the way they're going now. Either we've got to do something pretty quick, or else he will. That's the point. It's simple enough, and yet, when you begin to follow things out, right away you run into all sorts of complications. First of all, of course, he'd like nothing better than to have us out of the way. There's no doubt about that, is there?"

Mrs. Holton shivered. "No," she answered, in a low tone, "there isn't. And yet, knowing him the way we do, isn't it strange he hasn't tried before now?"

Lynch glanced at her keenly. "I've thought of that," he admitted. "There hasn't been anything of the sort with you, has there? Nothing melodramatic, like an automobile coming on you without warning, or a brick falling off a house, or a thug holding you up in a dark alleyway?"

The woman shook her head. "No," she said again, "and yet I've suffered as much the last few weeks, just from the dread of what he might do, almost as if he'd really tried. My nerve is pretty near gone, Tom."

Lynch nodded. "I know," he said briefly. "It isn't pleasant to feel there's some one gunning for you. At first I thought myself he'd try something of the kind, and of course he may yet, but I hardly think so. That's one of the complications I spoke about, for him. It's a good deal like one of these endless chains. It would probably be easy enough for him to get us put out of the way, but, even at that, he'd be no better off than before. There'd always be some one else to look out for, and they might not be as reasonable as we've been, either. No, I guess, on the whole, on that lay we're safe enough. If he ever makes a try, it's going to be a different one from that."

Mrs. Holton turned a shade paler. "You mean—" she faltered.

Lynch gave an impatient little laugh. "Exactly," he answered. "If he wants the job done, he'll do it himself. Try to do it himself, I should say. That's a pleasanter way of putting it."

A sudden gleam of comprehension darted across the woman's face, followed on the instant by an expression of abject fear. "God! Tom!" she cried sharply. "That's why you think he'll come!"

Lynch nodded. "That's it," he agreed. "He knows what he wants; we know what we want; it comes down to a question of who strikes first. With this difference—" he paused purposely for a moment, then added, with grim significance, "if we pull it off, it's successful blackmail; if he pulls it off, it's successful—murder."

Mrs. Holton's face showed gray in the lamplight. "God!" she muttered again.

There was a long pause. Then Lynch spoke again, half to his companion, half to himself. "No," he said meditatively, "there's no getting around it. In one way he's certainly got the best end of it. The thing he wants most is to see us out of the way; the thing we want least is to see anything happen to harm him. As I say, if we strike first, it merely costs him money; but, if he strikes first, that's all there is to it; we're done."

The woman, with an evident effort to pull herself together, drew a long breath. "And so," she said, with sarcasm, "knowing all this, you're going to try to get him down here, and give him the very chance he wants."

Lynch smiled patiently. "Well," he admitted coolly, "that's one way of putting it. But, on the other hand, you'll never catch a big fish with a bare hook, and I'm putting on the bait that I think's most likely to work. There are only three moves, really. First, the message that I'm going to send him; second, the way he's going to figure out what it means, and last, what's going to happen if we do get him down here."

Mrs. Holton nodded. "Well?" she said inquiringly.

"Well," repeated Lynch, "as far as the message goes, I simply send him word that I'm sick; confined to my bed, and very weak; that I've got no one here to look after me but you, and that I've got some political news of the very greatest importance that I've got to let him know about at once. Further, that if he can possibly arrange things to come down here and see me, he'll be well repaid. 'Well repaid,' is good, I think. And that's all there is to that."

The woman shook her head. "It's no use, Tom," she said, with conviction. "Either he won't come, or he'll bring some one with him, or he'll leave word where he's going in some such way that, if anything should happen to him, we'd be sure to be found out. No, it's no use."

Lynch smiled. "Those are the obvious things he would do, I'll admit," he answered. "But then he doesn't do the things that are obvious, as a general rule. I've studied the man pretty close since I've been in touch with him—a good deal closer than he thinks—and I've about made up my mind that I've got to the secret of how he's got along so fast. Most of us can't get rid of the habit of looking at everything from our own point of view; you know how you hear a hundred times a day, 'If I were in his place, I'd do so and so,' and all that sort of fool talk. Some of us, who think we're clever, get far enough to be willing to imagine how, under given conditions, the average man would think or act, not just how the particular kink in our own special little brain would work; but the governor's got further than that. He gets away from himself altogether—he even gets away from the average man altogether—and instead, if a man's worth being studied at all, he puts himself, as far as he's able, inside that man's skin; he eats, thinks, sleeps as that man, and when he's ready to make a move, he figures his own play by his own standards of thought and action, then plays the other man's game as the other man would play it, and so he's really on both sides of the table at the same time. God knows I hate Gordon, but God knows the man's smart as chain lightning, and anybody who undervalues him is a fool."

The woman frowned. "I don't understand what you're talking about," she said fretfully.

Lynch looked at her with ironical contempt. "My fault, I'm sure," he said gravely. "This was all I was trying to say; that I'm figuring now just how he'll look at this message he gets; not what you or I would think about it, or what anybody else in the world would think about it except the Honorable Richard Gordon himself. Is that any plainer?"

Mrs. Holton nodded. "What you think," she retorted, with unexpected spirit, "is plain enough, but what he's going to think isn't plain, and never will be."

"There," replied Lynch, "is exactly where we differ. I'll tell you just what he's going to think. In the first place, for any one who's been spending as much thought on us lately as I flatter myself he has, the first thing that will strike him is the fact that by coming down to this forsaken spot he could find us together, and in all probability would find no one else excepting ourselves. That's clear enough; and from that it's only a step to thinking how easy it would be to put us both away at the same time, and nobody the wiser. He'll have thought that far in about a tenth part of the time it's taken me to say it. Then he'll pull up short with the idea that the whole thing's a trap, and decide not to come; then he'll go into it deeper, and suddenly it's going to strike him what a big advantage he's really got over us; he knows we can't see him hurt; he's got the chance that the message is genuine, which is perfectly possible, and if it isn't, if things don't break right for him, he'll figure that he's sure to get away with a whole skin; and, if they do break right, he's got the chance of his life to get us off his mind for good and all. See?"

Grudgingly enough the woman nodded. "Yes," she said slowly. "But how about his bringing people with him; and how about his leaving word with the police where he's gone?"

Lynch laughed quietly. "Not for a minute," he answered confidently. "He's got to be careful, too. If he brings any one with him, he safeguards himself, and at the same time loses the chance to harm us, which is really the very thing that's going to bring him here. If he comes alone, and leaves word, it's going to cause a lot of talk; and what's more, some wise guy would be sure to follow him, looking for a chance to poke his nose into something that didn't concern him. No, if he comes, he'll come alone; and he's going to come, too; I can put my finger now on the thing that's just going to turn the scale."

Mrs. Holton glanced up. "And what's that?" she queried.

"A question," Lynch answered, readily enough, "of nerves. Something that no one who hadn't had a chance to watch the governor pretty carefully of late would ever think of; but I've had that chance, and I can see in a dozen little ways that he isn't just the man he was a year ago. At times he's irritable, something he's never shown before; he doesn't keep his mind as close to a subject as he used to; on two or three important matters he's been apparently unable to make up his mind; and twice, at least, he's made decisions that I'm sure politically are going to be disastrous for him. Mentally and physically, he's a tired man; little things bother him more than they should, and after he's brooded as much as I think he has over the trouble we're making for him, for once, very likely against his better judgment, he'll decide on the rash course, and he'll take a chance on coming down here just to get rid of the suspense of the whole affair. He'll come; I don't feel the slightest doubt about it."

"And if he does," said the woman thoughtfully, "you're really going to hold him up for fifty thousand."

Lynch nodded. "I think that's the proper sum," he said, "anything under that's too small, and anything over that he'd probably kick at. But that figure gives us enough to get by on for the rest of our days, and the idea of having us half way across the world for all time is going to strike him pretty strong. He knows he can trust me when I say this is the last deal, and I think he'd do it anyway, but when I've got it in reserve to tell him that it's a case of put up or shut up; that we get our fifty thousand right off the reel, or there'll be a vacancy in the office of governor, why, there's nothing to it. I think the whole scheme's a damned good one, if I do say so. He's got everything to live for; he'll have his mind at rest; and the money's only a flea bite for him, after all. Anyway, the game's getting too hot for me, and we might as well get it settled one way or the other. We'll get his money, or we'll get him."

Mrs. Holton rose to take her leave. "And if he should try to get in first?" she said apprehensively.

Lynch's mouth set grimly. "I'm not taking chances," he said significantly. "You needn't worry that anything's going to happen to you. You see that you get here to-morrow night at eight sharp, and we'll have a little rehearsal."

For half an hour after Mrs. Holton had taken her leave, Lynch, from time to time glancing at his watch, sat alone in silence. At length there came a faint knock at the door, and he rose to admit a thin, ferret-faced, slinking little figure of a man, with a sinister eye and a manner in general far from reassuring. Lynch welcomed him with scant courtesy, and his tone, as he bade him take a seat, savored less of a request than of a command.

"You're late," he said curtly.

The other nodded. "I know it," he answered sulkily enough, "I couldn't help it. What do you want of me, anyhow?"

Lynch's expression was the reverse of pleasant. "Come, come," he said sharply, "we'll cut that out, right away. You know what the bargain was; you ought to, since you were the one that was so anxious to make it. You've had a cinch, too. Just twice in three years I've asked you to do anything for me, and now, when I need you for a little job that I want to see pulled off right, you turn ugly, as if I was trying to rub it into you too hard. And I tell you, you can cut it out; if you don't feel like doing it, just say so, and I'll know what to do."

There was a certain cold menace in his tone, and the man threw him a glance malevolent, yet cringing, much like that of a beaten dog, subdued against his will.

"Why, sure," he whined, "don't go talking that way, Tom. I'm game enough. What's the row?"

Lynch motioned to him to draw his chair closer, and then, leaning forward, for some minutes he talked earnestly, the little man listening attentively, and from time to time nodding his head. As Lynch finished speaking, he glanced up rather with an air of relief.

"That sounds easy enough," he said, "most too easy. I'll want to look the place over, though, to make sure what I'd better use. Maybe I'm a little out of practice, anyway. I hope I don't get you in bad."

He grinned as he spoke. Lynch, observing him, allowed the faintest shadow of a smile to play for an instant around his lips.

"I hope not," he answered dryly, "both on my account—and on yours."

The little man glanced at him furtively. "Whatcher mean?" he demanded.

Lynch raised his eyebrows. "Mean?" he said carelessly, and with apparent lack of interest. "Why, what should I mean? Nothing, except that if you shouldn't happen to be in time, and anything unpleasant should happen to me, I've left everything looked out for. The police will have all the papers within twenty-four hours."

The man's impudent grin had completely vanished. He turned a sickly white, and swallowed with difficulty once or twice.

"Hell, Tom," he remarked at last, "but you follow a man up too close. I guess I'll be able to look after my end. Come on; let's see what the place's like," and together they left the room.