beat your brains to a bloody pulp wiv it, so 'elp me Gawd!"
There was something appalling about the quiet voice, charged with absolute determination, and Healy backing slowly away from the Cockney, his face gray and his jaw sagging in the bright sunshine.
"If I'm thick wiv Stone," went on Larkin, "it's becos Stone an' me is straight. You—you hain't heven straight wiv yourself. I've seen you cheat yourself at solitaire, I 'ave. If you're playin' this hon the level, w'ot habout hall the tellygrams you've sent and 'ad sent to you? W'ot price that one the landlord of the Matrix at Miami slipped to you, tucked into a newspaper? Don't figger you can fool me, Frank Healy, you bloody card-shuffler. And I'll tell you one thing more"—he set the tip of his forefinger on Healy's breastbone and the gambler shuddered—"if I wanted, hany old time, to get hout of you hall you know habout this location of Lyman's, hall I 'ad to do was to poke a gun hinter your ribs and you'd 'ave squealed it hout like a pig w'en the knife begins to let the air inter 'is froat. You're a coward and a cheat hany time you think you can git aw'y wiv it. But not wiv me. I got your number and it's larst hunder the wire hevery time. Now you know w'y I don't tip you off before'and to what I know. And you know w'y Stone don't do it, becos w'ot I just told you is w'ot 'e thinks, honly he's more careful of 'is langwidge and time than I am."
Larkin turned away contemptuously from the gambler, who mopped from his forehead more ner-
