Page:Wadsworth Camp--the gray mask.djvu/275

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PAYMENT IS DEMANDED
265

would have said, be capable of the evil with which he was charged.

Garth watched the men perpetually. He saw the hatred slip through while he quietly told the story that would condemn them to death. During Nora's recital, too, both men exposed something of their powerful desire for revenge against these two who quietly droned away their lives.

Garth took Nora from the courtroom well aware that, given the opportunity, Slim and George would not let them move a foot without exacting full payment.

Garth respected Nora's mood. He put her in a cab and sent her home, then wandered restlessly about the down town streets.

Perhaps Nora's attitude was partly responsible for his feeling of oppression, of imminence. Nothing could happen, he told himself again. Slim and George would start for the death house to-morrow. They would have no chance. If they delegated such work to their subordinates still at large, Garth fancied that he could take care of himself and Nora, too. It was the exceptional cunning of Slim and George that he shrank from, had feared ever since the night Nora and he had trapped them.

Angry with himself he went to headquarters. The inspector admitted that he, too, would breathe easier when the two were in the chair.

The next day Garth managed to dismiss his premonition. He chatted with two or three detectives in the outside office. The inspector sent for him.