is
palm, and ambled away towards Stacy and Barker. Holding the packet in
his hand with an amused yet puzzled smile, Demorest watched the gambler
give Stacy's hand a hearty farewell shake and a supplementary slap on
the back to the delighted Barker, and then vanish in a flash of red
sash and silver buttons. At which Demorest, walking slowly towards his
partners, opened the packet, and stood suddenly still. It contained the
dried and bloodless second finger of a human hand cut off at the first
joint!
For an instant he held it at arm's length, as if about to cast it away.
Then he grimly replaced it in the paper, put it carefully in his pocket,
and silently walked after his companions.
CHAPTER I
A strong southwester was beating against the windows and doors of
Stacy's Bank in San Francisco, and spreading a film of rain between the
regular splendors of its mahogany counters and sprucely dressed clerks
and the usual passing pedestrian. For Stacy's new banking-house had
long since received the epithet of "palatial" from an enthusiastic
local press fresh from the "opening" luncheon in its richly decorated
directors' rooms, and it was said that once a homely would-be depositor
from One Horse Gulch was so cowed by its magnificence that his heart
failed him at the last moment, and mumbling an apology to the elegant
receiving teller, fled with his greasy chamois pouch of gold-dust to
deposit his treasure in the dingy Mint around the corner. Perhaps there
was something of this feeling, mingled with a certain simple-minded
fascination, in the hesitation of a stranger of a higher class who
entered the bank that rainy morning and finally tendered his card to the
important negro messenger.
The card preceded him through noiselessly swinging doors and across
heavily carpeted passages until it reached the inner core of Mr. James
Stacy's private offices, and was respectfully laid before him. He was
not alone. At his side, in an attitude of polite and studied expectancy,
stood a correct-looking young man, for whom Mr. Stacy was evidently
writing a memorandum. The stranger glanced furtively at the card with a
curiosity hardly in keeping with his suggested good breeding; but Stacy
did not look at it until he had finished his memorandum.
"There," he said, with business decision, "you can tell your people that
if we carry their new debentures over our limit we will expect a larger
margin. Ditches are not what they were three y
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