“I’ll see they cover the raid.”

Bromfield, massaging a glove on to his long fingers, added another word of caution.  “Don’t slip up on this thing.  Lindsay’s a long way from being a soft mark.”

“Don’t I know it?” snapped Durand viciously.  “There’ll be no slip-up this time if you do your part.  We’ll get him, and we’ll get him right.”

“Without any violence, of course.”

“Oh, of course.”

Was there a covert but derisive jeer concealed in that smooth assent?  Bromfield did not know, but he took away with him an unease that disturbed his sleep that night.

Before the clubman was out of the hotel, Jerry was snapping instructions at one of his satellites.

“Tail that fellow.  Find where he goes, who he is, what girl he’s mashed on, all about him.  See if he’s hooked up with Lindsay.  And how?  Hop to it!  Did you get a slant at him as he went out?”

“Sure I did.  He’s my meat.”

The tailer vanished.

Jerry stood at the window, still sullenly chewing his unlighted cigar, and watched his late visitor and the tailer lose themselves in the hurrying crowds.

“White-livered simp.  ‘No violence, Mr. Durand.’  Hmp!  Different here.”

An evil grin broke through on the thin-lipped, cruel face.

CHAPTER XXVIII

IN BAD

When Bromfield suggested to Clay with a touch of stiffness that he would be glad to show him a side of New York night life probably still unfamiliar to him, the cattleman felt a surprise he carefully concealed.  He guessed that this was a belated attempt on the part of Miss Whitford’s fiance to overcome the palpable dislike he had for her friend.  If so, the impulse that inspired the offer was a creditable one.  Lindsay had no desire to take in any of the plague spots of the city with Bromfield.  Something about the society man set his back up, to use his own phrase.  But because this was true he did not intend to be outdone in generosity by a successful rival.  Promptly and heartily he accepted the invitation.  If he had known that a note and a card from Jerry Durand lay in the vest pocket of his cynical host while he was holding out the olive branch, it is probable the Arizonan would have said, “No, thank you, kind sir.”

The note mentioned no names.  It said, “Wednesday, at Maddock’s, 11 P.M.  Show this card.”

And to Maddock’s, on Wednesday, at an hour something earlier than eleven, the New Yorker led his guest after a call at one or two clubs.

Even from the outside the place had a dilapidated look that surprised Lindsay.  The bell was of that brand you keep pulling till you discover it is out of order.  Decayed gentility marked the neighborhood, though the blank front of the houses looked impeccably respectable.

As a feeble camouflage of its real reason for being, Maddock’s called itself the “Omnium Club.”  But when Clay found how particular the doorkeeper was as to those who entered he guessed at once it was a gambling-house.