house. He sat where
you are sitting now. While he was talking to Jim I was behind the
curtain there and heard every word." She indicated portieres behind
them.

"I won't repeat everything I heard, although I could if it was
necessary. Cummings said he had heard Jim had done another job and came
to him for his split. 'You got away with it once, Jim,' he said; 'I
didn't do anything but you've got to come through this time. I run
things here in Los Angeles, let me tell you that. You're an old pal and
all that and I'd like to let you alone, but I can't afford to. The boys
are hollering because you're working without kicking in and for my own
protection you've got to split.'

"'And what'll you do if I don't?' Jim asks. 'Well,' says Cummings, 'I
could have you croaked.' When he said that I thought Jim was going to
kill him right here, but he kept control of himself. 'Or,' says
Cummings, 'I'll have you pinched for that New York job.' Jim smiled when
he heard that. 'Who'll do the pinching?' he asked. 'One of your paid
cops?' 'It'll be somebody bigger than a cop,' said Cummings."

John felt Brennan move forward on the davenport.

"'Somebody bigger than a cop.' Are you sure he said that?" Brennan
asked.

"Those were his words," Mrs. Hatch answered. "'Who'll that be?' asks
Jim. 'Never mind who it'll be,' says Cummings, 'you'll find that out
when it happens. Now, I'm giving you your last chance, either come
across or go back and do your bit; what's it going to be?'

"I know Jim. I know he would rather have died than to have given in to
Cummings. 'Nothing doing, "Gink,"' Jim says. 'All right, Jim,' says
Cummings, 'don't ever say I didn't give you a chance.' Then he left.

"I was afraid. I begged Jim to split with Cummings and make the most of
it. But he was stubborn. 'I'd rather go to the pen than split with that
cur,' he says to me. So nothing more happened until today and you were
here and saw it.

"Now, this is how I think you may be able to help us. You saw who it was
who arrested Jim. It was Gibson, the police commissioner, who is running
for mayor. Gibson must have been the man Cummings referred to when he
said that it would be somebody bigger than a cop who would arrest Jim.
Gibson could never have known anything about Jim unless Cummings told
him. Gibson and Cummings must be working together, somehow. The only
reason Jim was arrested was because he wouldn't split with Cummings and
it's Gibson who arrests him. Can't