It was all there—­all except the proof.  And the proof—­he laughed aloud suddenly, unpleasantly.  There seemed something sardonic in it; ay, more than that, all that was grim in irony.  The proof, in Stangeist’s own writing, sworn to before witnesses in the presence of a notary, the text of the document, of course, unknown to both witnesses and notary, evidence, absolute and final, that would be admitted in any court, for Stangeist was a lawyer, and would see to that, was in Stangeist’s own safe, for Stangeist’s own protection—­Stangeist, who was himself the head and brains of this murder gang—­Stangeist, who was the man higher up!

It was amazing, without parallel in the history of crime—­and yet ingenious, clever, full of the craft and cunning that had built up the shyster lawyer’s reputation below the dead line.

Jimmie Dale’s lips were curiously thin now.  So it was Stangeist!  A Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with a vengeance!  He knew Stangeist—­not personally; not by the reputation Stangeist held, low even as that was, among his brother members of the profession; but as the man was known for what he really was among the crooks and criminals of the underworld, where, in that strange underground exchange, whispered confidences passed between those whose common enemy was the law, where Larry the Bat himself was trusted in the innermost circles.

Stangeist was a power in the Bad Lands.  There were few among that unholy community that Stangeist, at one time or another, in one way or another, had not rescued from the clutches of the law, resorting to any trick or cunning, but with perjury, that he could handle like the master of it that he was, employed as the most common weapon of defence for his clients—­provided he were paid well enough for it.  The man had become more than the attorney for the crime world—­he had become part of it.  Cunning, shrewd, crafty, conscienceless, cold-blooded—­that was Stangeist.

The form and features of the man pictured themselves in Jimmie Dale’s mind—­the six-foot muscular frame, that was invariably clothed in attire of the most fashionable cut; the thin lips with their oily, plausible smile, the straight black hair that straggled into pin point, little black eyes, the dark face with its high cheek bones, which, with the pronounced aquiline nose and the persistent rumour that he was a quarter caste, had led the underworld, prejudiced always in favour of a “monaker,” to dub the man the “Indian Chief.”

Jimmie Dale laughed again—­still unpleasantly.  So Stangeist had taken the plunge at last and branched out into a wider field, had he?  Well, there was nothing surprising in that—­except that he had not done it before!  The irony of it lay in the fact that at last he had been too clever, overstepped himself in his own cleverness, that was all.  It was Australian Ike, The Mope, and Clarie Deane that Stangeist had gathered around him, the Tocsin had said—­and there were none worse in Larry the Bat’s wide range of acquaintanceship than those three.  Stangeist had made himself master of Australian Ike, The Mope, and Clarie Deane—­and he had driven them a little too hard on the division of the spoils—­and laughed at them, and cracked the whip much after the fashion that the trainer in the cage handles the growling beasts around him.