“Yes; you are to know now,” she said, almost as though she were talking to herself; then, with a swift intake of her breath, impulsively:  “Jimmie!  Jimmie!  I had thought that it would be all so different when—­when you came.  That—­that I would have nothing to fear—­for you—­for me—­because—­it would be all over.  And now you are here, Jimmie—­and, oh, thank God for you!—­but I feel to-night almost—­almost as though it were hopeless, that—­that we were beaten.”

“Beaten!” He stepped quickly to the table, and sat down, and took one of her hands away from her face to hold it in both his own.  “Beaten!” he laughed out defiantly; then, playfully, soothingly, to reassure her:  “Jimmie Dale and Larry the Bat and the Gray Seal and the Tocsin—­beaten!  And after we have just scored the last trick!”

“But we do not hold many trumps, Jimmie,” she answered gravely.  “You have seen something of this Crime Club’s power, its methods, its merciless, cruel, inhuman cunning, and you, perhaps, think that you understand—­but you have not begun to grasp the extent of either that power or cunning.  This horrible organisation has been in existence for many years.  I do not know how many.  I only know that the men of whom it is composed are not ordinary criminals, that they do not work in the ordinary way—­to-day, they set the machinery of fraud, deception, robbery, and murder in motion that ten years from now, and, perhaps, only then, will culminate in the final success of their schemes—­and they play only for enormous stakes.  But”—­her lips grew set—­“you will see for yourself.  I must not talk any longer than is necessary; we must not take too much time.  You count on three days before they begin to suspect that all is not right with Jimmie Dale—­I know them better than you, and I give you two days, forty-eight hours at the outside, and possibly far less.  Jimmie”—­abruptly—­“did you ever hear of Peter LaSalle?”

“The capitalist?  Yes!” said Jimmie Dale.  “He died a few years ago.  I know his brother Henry well—­at the club, and all that.”

“Do you!” she said evenly.  “Well, the man you know is not Peter LaSalle’s brother; he is an impostor—­and one of the Crime Club.”

“Not—­Peter LaSalle’s brother!”—­Jimmie Dale repeated the words mechanically.  And suddenly his brain was whirling.  Vaguely, dimly, in little memory snatches, events, not pertinent then, vitally significant now, came crowding upon him.  Peter LaSalle had come from somewhere in the West to live in New York; and very shortly afterward had died.  The estate had been worth something over eleven millions.  And there had been—­he leaned quickly, tensely forward over the table, staring at her.  “My God!” he whispered hoarsely.  “You are not, you cannot be—­the—­the daughter—­Peter LaSalle’s daughter, who disappeared strangely!”

“Yes,” she said quietly.  “I am Marie LaSalle.”

CHAPTER IX