“For de love o’ Gawd.  Who did he croak?”

“‘Slim’ Jim Collins.  Cracked him one on the bean and that was a-plenty.  Hope you’ll enjoy each other’s society, gents.”  The guard closed the door and departed.

“Is that right?  Did youse do up ‘Slim,’ or was he kiddin’ me?”

“I don’t reckon we’ll discuss that subject,” said Clay blandly, but with a note of finality in his voice.

“No offense, boss.  It’s an honor to have so distinguished a gent for a cell pal.  For that matter I ain’t no cheap rat myself.  Dey pinched me for shovin’ de queer.  I’d ought to get fifteen years,” he said proudly.

This drew a grin from Lindsay, though not exactly a merry one.  “If you’re anxious for a long term you can have some of mine,” he told the counterfeiter.

“Maybe youse’ll go up Salt Creek,” said Shiny hopefully.

Afraid the allusion might not be understood, he thoughtfully explained that this was the underworld term for the electric chair.

Clay made no further comment.  He found the theme a gruesome one.

“Anyhow, I’m glad dey didn’t put no hoister nor damper-getter wit’ me.  I’m partickler who I meet.  De whole profesh is gettin’ run down at de heel.  I’m dead sick of rats who can’t do nothin’ but lift pokes,” concluded the occupant of the lower berth with disgust.

Though Clay’s nerves were of the best he did very little sleeping that night.  He was in a grave situation.  Even if he had a fair field his plight would be serious enough.  But he guessed that during the long hours of darkness Durand was busy weaving a net of false evidence from which he could scarcely disentangle himself.  Unless Bromfield came forward at once as a witness for him, his case would be hopeless—­and Clay suspected that the clubman would prove only a broken reed as a support.  The fellow was selfish to the core.  He had not, in the telling Western phrase, the guts to go through.  He would take the line of least resistance.

Beatrice was in his thoughts a great deal.  What would she think of him when the news came that he was a murderer, caught by the police in a den of vice where he had no business to be?  Some deep instinct of his soul told him that she would brush through the evidence to the essential truth.  She had failed him once.  She would never do it again.  He felt sure of that.

The gray morning broke, and brought with it the steaming smell of prison cooking, the sounds of the caged underworld, the sense of life all around him dwarfed and warped to twisted moral purposes.  A warden came with breakfast—­a lukewarm, muddy liquid he called coffee and a stew in which potatoes and bits of fat beef bobbed like life buoys—­and Clay ate heartily while his cell mate favored him, between gulps, with a monologue on ethics, politics, and the state of society, as these related especially to Shiny the Shover.  Lindsay was given to understand that the whole world was “on de spud,” but the big crooks had fixed the laws so that they could wear diamonds instead of stripes.