are in on the play let Reno and his mob sneak out of the hoosegow, pull the job, and duck back in. Nice thing in alibis. Then they got sprung on bail a couple of hours later.
“It looks as if Lew Yard tumbled. He sent Dutch Jake Wahl and some other boys out to the Silver Arrow last night to teach Reno and his pals not to take things in their own hands like that. But Reno got away, and got back to the city. It was either him or Lew then. He made sure which it would be by being in front of Lew’s house with a gun when Lew came out this morning. Reno seems to have had the right dope, because I notice that right now he’s holding down a chair that would have been Lew Yard’s if Lew hadn’t been put on ice.”
Everybody was sitting very still, as if to call attention to how still they were sitting. Nobody could count on having any friends among those present. It was no time for careless motions on anybody’s part.
If what I had said meant anything one way or the other to Reno he didn’t show it.
Thaler whispered softly:
“Didn’t you skip some of it?”
“You mean the part about Jerry?” I kept on being the life of the party: “I was coming back to that. I don’t know whether he got away from the can when you crushed out, and was caught later, or whether he didn’t get away, or why. And I don’t know how willingly he went along on the bank caper. But he did go along, and he was dropped and left in front of the bank because he was your right bower, and his being killed there would pin the trick to you. He was kept in the car till the getaway was on. Then he was pushed out, and was shot in the back. He was facing the bank, with his back to the car, when he got his.”
Thaler looked at Reno and whispered: