Helena rose from the couch and came over to the table.

“Poor Flopper!” said she sweetly.

“Shut up!” snapped the Flopper savagely.

“Go on,” prompted Pale Face Harry.  “Go on, Flopper—­tell us about it.”

“I told you, ain’t I?” growled the Flopper.  “De driver called a divvy wid de cop comin’, an I had ter shell—­an’ wot he left de cop pinched.  Dat’s all”—­the Flopper’s mouth was working again with the rage that burned within him.

Pale Face Harry, with pointed forefinger, gingerly and facetiously laid the coins out in a row on the table.

“And you the king of Floppers!” he murmured softly.  “It’s a wonder you didn’t let the Salvation Army get the rest away from you on the way along!”

Helena laughed—­but the Flopper didn’t.  He stepped close to Pale Face Harry, and shoved his face within an inch of the other’s.

“You close yer jaw,” he snarled, “or I’ll make yer map look like wot’s goin’ ter happen ter dat cross-eyed snitch of a guy dat did me—­him an’ de harness bull, when I—­” The Flopper stopped abruptly, and edged away from Pale Face Harry.  “Hullo, Doc,” he said meekly.  “I didn’t hear youse comin’ in.”

A man, fair-haired, broad-shouldered, immaculate in well-tailored tweeds, reliant in poise, leaned nonchalantly against the door—­inside the room.  He was young, not more than twenty-eight, with clean-shaven, pleasant, open face—­a handsome face, marred only to the close observer by the wrinkles beginning to pucker around his eyes, and a slight, scarcely discernible puffiness in his skin—­“Doc” Madison, gentleman crook and high-class, polished con-man, who had lifted his profession to an art, was still too young to be indelibly stamped with the hall-marks of dissipation.

His gray eyes travelled from one to another, lingered an instant on Helena, and came back to the Flopper.

“What’s the trouble?” he demanded quietly.

It was Pale Face Harry who answered him.

“The Flopper’s got it in for a couple of ginks that handed him one—­a bull and a chauffeur on a gape-wagon,” he grinned, punctuating his words with a cough.  “The Flopper’s got an idea the corpse-preserver’s business is dull, and he’s going to help ’em out with two orders and pay for the flowers himself.”

Doc Madison shook his head and smiled a little grimly.

“Forget it, Flopper!” he said crisply.  “I’ve something better for you to do.  You fade away, disappear and lay low from this minute.  I don’t care what you do when you’re resurrected, but from now on the three of you are dead and buried, and the police go into mourning for at least six months.”

“What you got for us, Doc?—­something nice?”—­Helena pushed Pale Face Harry and the Flopper unceremoniously out of her line of vision as she spoke.

“Yes—­the drinks.  Cleggy’s bringing them,” Madison laughed—­and opened the door, as the tinkle of glass and a shuffling footstep sounded without.