as she stared at Danglar.

"You--you mean he confessed?" she said.

"The Angel? Never!" Danglar laughed grimly, and shook his head. "Nothing
like that! It was a question of playing one 'fence' against another. You
know that Witzer, who's handled all our jewelry for us, has been on the
look-out for any stones that might have come from that collection.
Well, this afternoon he passed the word to me that he'd been offered the
finest unset emerald he'd ever seen, and that it had come to him through
old Jake Luertz's runner, a very innocent-faced young man who is known
to the trade as the Crab."

Danglar paused--and laughed again. Unconsciously Rhoda Gray drew her
shawl a little closer about her shoulders. It seemed to bring a chill
into the room, that laugh. Once before, on another night, Danglar had
laughed, and, with his parted lips, she had likened him to a beast
showing its fangs. He looked it now more than ever. For all his ease of
voice and manner, he was in deadly earnest; and if there was merriment
in his laugh, it but seemed to enhance the menace and the promise of
unholy purpose that lurked in the cold glitter of his small, black eyes.

"It didn't take long to get hold of the Crab"--Danglar was rubbing his
hands together softly--"and the emerald with him. We got him where we
could put the screws on without arousing the neighborhood."

"Another murder, I suppose!" Rhoda Gray flung out the words crossly.

"Oh, no," said Danglar pleasantly. "He squealed before it came to that.
He's none the worse for wear, and he'll be turned loose in another hour
or so, as soon as we're through at old Jake Luertz's. He's no more good
to us. He came across all right--after he was properly frightened. He's
been with old Jake as a sort of familiar for the last six years, and--"

"He'd have sold his soul out, he was so scared!" The withered hand on
the table twitched; the deformed creature's face was twisted into a
grimace; and the man was chuckling with unhallowed mirth, as though
unable to contain himself at, presumably, the recollection of a scene
which he had witnessed himself. "He was down on his knees and clawing
out with his hands for mercy, and he squealed like a rat. 'It's the
sixth panel in the bedroom upstairs,' he says; 'it's all there. But for
God's sake don't tell Jake I told. It's the sixth panel. Press the knot
in the sixth panel that--'" He stopped abruptly.

Danglar had pulled out his watch and with exaggerated p