whine changed into boasting as he talked. “I bet you I could get McGraw to come across too, and I thought you’d kick in with something.”
“They must be high in the air to toss dough at a woozy racket like that.”
“I don’t know,” he said superiorly. “It ain’t such a lousy one at that.” He became humble again. “Give me a chance, chief. Don’t gum it on me. I’ll give you fifty bucks now and a split of whatever I get from McGraw if you’ll keep your clam shut till I can put it over and grab a rattler.”
“Nobody but you knows where Whisper is?”
“Nobody else, except Dan, that’s as dead as he is.”
“Where are they?”
“The old Redman warehouse down on Porter Street. In the back, upstairs, Whisper had a room fixed up with a bed, stove, and some grub. Give me a chance. Fifty bucks now and a cut on the rest.”
I let go of his arm and said:
“I don’t want the dough, but go ahead. I’ll lay off for a couple of hours. That ought to be long enough.”
“Thanks, chief. Thanks, thanks,” and he hurried away from me. I put on my coat and hat, went out, found Green Street and the Rutledge Block. It was a wooden building a long while past any prime it might ever have had. Mr. Charles Proctor Dawn’s establishment was on the second floor. There was no elevator. I climbed a worn and rickety flight of wooden steps.
The lawyer had two rooms, both dingy, smelly, and poorly lighted. I waited in the outer one while a clerk who went well with the rooms carried my name in to the lawyer. Half a minute later the clerk opened the door and beckoned me in.