“Go out front again, and shut off this blab.  I warn you that’s all-Now, Phil, give this to the men.  Tell them to keep off the cocaine—­they’re getting to be a lot of bone heads lately.  Too much dope will spoil the best crook in the world.”

The white hand passed out a roll of crisp, new currency to the lieutenant of the gang, who gingerly reached for it, as though he expected the tapering fingers to claw him.

“Fifty dollars to each man.  No holding out.  Remember, every one of them is spying on the other to me.  I’m not a Rip Van Winkle.  Now, I want you to keep this fellow Montague Shirley covered but don’t put him away until I give you the word.  Send the bunch upstairs, for I don’t want to be disturbed the next two hours.  And just keep off the coke yourself.  You’re scratching your face a good deal these days—­I know the signs.”

Phil expostulated nervously.  “Oh, gov’nor, I ain’t no fiend—­just once and a while I gets a little rummy, and brightens up.  It takes too much money to git it now, anyway.  Goodbye, chief.”

As he closed the wooden door to pay the gangsters, there was a slight grating noise, which followed a double click.  A bar of wood automatically slid down into position behind the door, blocking a possible opening from the front of the cellar.  The lights suddenly were darkened.  The sound of shuffling feet would have indicated to a listener that the owner of the nervous hand was retreating to the rear of the darkened den.  A noise resembling that of the turn of a rusty hinge might have then been heard:  there was a metallic clang, the rattle of a sliding chain and the rear room was as empty as it was black!

In the front room, after payment from the red-headed ruffian, Phil, the men clambered in single file up a wooden ladder to the street level.  A trap-door was put into place and closed.  Then the men began to shoot “craps” for a readjustment of the spoils, with the result that Red Phil, as his henchmen called him, was the smiling possessor of most of the money, without the erstwhile necessity of “holding out.”

Then the gangsters scattered to the nearby gin-shops to while away the time before darkness should call for their evil activities.  It was a cheerful little assortment of desperadoes, yet in appearance they did not differ from most of the habitues of New York garages, those cesspools of urban criminality.

From his club, Shirley telephoned Jim Merrivale in his downtown office, purposely giving another name, as he addressed his friend—­a pseudonym upon which they had agreed during the night call.  Shirley was suspicious of all telephones, by this time, and his guarded inquiry gave no possible clue to a wiretapping eavesdropper.

“How is the new bull-dog?” was the question, after the first guarded greeting.  “Is he still muzzled?”

“Yes, Mr. Smith,” responded Merrivale, “and the meanest specimen I have ever seen outside a Zoo!  When I sent the groom out to feed him this morning, he snarled and tried to claw him.  He’s on a hunger strike.  I looked up the license number on his collar but he’s not registered in this state.” (This, Shirley knew, meant the automobile tag under the machine which had been captured.)