Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/324

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312
RESURRECTION ROCK

dence of recent wrong-doing either by Kincheloe or by himself without Ethel's witness of what she had seen in his house at St. Florentin. Yet the linking up of this affair at the Rock with that of Galilee exposed elements of peril which were new.

Lucas left the pier, calculating these; and strode toward his son's apartment. He had not the slightest idea of locking up Kincheloe; for in the catalogue of Lucas's failings, betrayal of a confederate held no place. But perhaps it would be a good thing to get Kincheloe well out of the way, not alone for Kincheloe's sake but for Lucas's own. For no one knew better than Lucas the weaknesses of Miss Platt's husband and the unlikelihood of his thinking clearly and sanely in an emergency. Suppose this fellow, who called himself Loutrelle, and his attorneys, or whoever else now acted with him got hold of Kincheloe and told him all they knew about Lucas Cullen, Kincheloe undoubtedly would blow up; he would not be capable of discriminating between what they could and could not prove. Kincheloe—lacking any reliable tradition of fidelity to his partner in wrong-doing—was too apt to turn State's evidence to save himself.

Lucas accelerated his pace till he reached a street car which took him downtown where he obtained a considerable sum of money in bank notes. Not knowing precisely where Kincheloe now abode, he telephoned to Kincheloe's lawyer friend, Dougherty, and, obtaining an address, he engaged a taxicab and drove five or six miles north into that extraordinary and wide-spread district of indulgence and light living which is known to many of its inhabitants as "Little Paris" and which was Kincheloe's delight.

The car passed new, gaudy apartment hotels with