Gordon Young

“ Steve Ellis turned the book and exposed the box. At the same moment my intelligent bell-boy, with a hearty grin and an impudent, “In you go, old top,” shoved the reluctant man through the doorway. The boy pulled the door shut and was gone.
“Mr. Daniel Cornwall, gentleman,” I said, bowing toward the frightened figure, still in his clerical sideburns and black clothes. ”

“ That is all you know about women, living or dead. Personally, I have an idea that her spirit kept nagging at the conscience of Governor Walsh until he was roused to dare do what he knew was right. No, I'm not religious but I believe in the devil. How can one help it when such things as you, with the protection and aid of fellows like Parsons here and these fat dicks, cumber the earth. Your box is in that dictionary. ”

“ I closed the door, picked up the other gun, swiftly searched the detectives and stood them up where I could watch then with the least effort.
“Cornwall,” I said, “you probably thought you could get the dead woman to have God forgive you if you stole her daughter—took the girl away from a father whom you knew to be innocent of all the crimes that threw him repeatedly into the penitentiary. ”

“ He came with two or three private detectives and a lawyer, obviously intending to trap me in a little game of blackmail. I knew that was in the air almost as soon as I saw him creeping from the automobile, solicitously assisted by two fellows who could no more have proclaimed themselves detectives if they had worn their tin badges as shirt studs instead of concealing them under their coats.
An experienced blackmailer like myself understands pretty much the risks he must take. ”