id he. 'Then you confess you've committed it?' said I,
anxious to pin him right down to it, y' see.' 'ou bet I do. Ef they hang
me it'll be because I'm a drivelling idiot, an' not because I've shot
one er two in my time. Nobody but an ass could be caught at it, an'
that's why I feel so infernal guilty. Look here, Mr. Crow, ever' time
you see a feller that's proved himself a downright ass, jest take him
out an' lynch him. He deserves it, that's all I've got to say. The
greatest crime in the world is criminal neglect.' Don't bother me now,
Wick; I'm going to write that down an' have him sign it."

"Look here, pard," said Bill Briggs, laboriously breaking in upon their
conversation; "I want to do the right thing by you an' her as fer as I
can. You've been good to me, an' I won't fergit it. Besides, you said
you'd make things easy fer me if I told you what I knowed about that job
last winter. Well, I'd better tell it now, 'cause I'm liable to pass in
my checks before these doctors git through with me. An' besides, they'll
be haulin' me off to the county seat in a day or two. Now, this is dead
straight, I'm goin' to give you. Maybe it won't help you none, but '11
give you a lead."

"Go on," cried Bonner breathlessly.

"Well, Sam Welch come to me in Branigan's place one night--that's in
Fourt' Avenue--an' says he's got a big job on. We went over to Davy
Wolfe's house an' found him an' his mother--the old fairy, you remember.
Well, to make it short, Sam said it was a kidnaping job an' the Wolfes
was to be in on it because they used to live in this neighbourhood an'
done a lot of work here way back in the seventies. There was to be five
thousand dollars in the job if we got that girl safe on board a ship
bound fer Europe. Sam told us that the guy what engineered the game was
a swell party an' a big boy in politics, finance, society an' ever'thin'
else. He could afford to pay, but he didn't want to be seen in the job.
Nobody but Sam ever seen his face. Sam used to be in politics some. Jest
before we left New York to come up here, the swell guy comes around to
Davy's with another guy fer final orders. See? It was as cold as h----
as the dickens--an' the two of 'em was all muffled up so's we couldn't
get a pipe at their mugs. One of 'em was old--over fifty, I guess--an'
the other was a young chap. I'm sure of that.

"They said that one or the other of 'em would be in this neighbourhood
when the job was pulled off; that one thou