|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 57
"The King's Palace?" she asked curiously. "I never heard of such a
place. Are you making it all up?"
"Not a bit of it. It's all that's left of some of the old ruins of the
same folk who lived in the caves up on the cliffs. . . . Do you know
why I am bound to get Jim Galloway's tag soon or late?"
Her mind with his had touched upon the hidden rifles, and the abrupt
digression was no digression to her, reached by the span of suggestion.
"Because he is in the wrong and you are in the right; or, in other
words, because he opposes the law and you represent it."
"Because he plays the game wrong! Some more results of a long week of
nothing to do but think things out. There is just one way for a
law-breaker to operate if he means to get away with it."
"You mean that a man can get away with it? Surely not for good?"
But he nodded thoughtfully at the slowly fading strata of shaded colors
splashed across the sky.
"A man can get away with it for keeps . . . if he plays the game right.
Jim Galloway isn't that man and so I'll get him. He has ignored the
first necessary principle, which is the lone hand."
"You mean he takes men into his confidence?"
"And he goes on and ignores the second necessary principle; a man must
stop short of murder. If he turns gangman and killer, he ties his own
rope around his neck. If a man like Galloway, a man with brains,
power, without fear, without scruple, should decide to loot this corner
of the world or any other corner, and set about it right, playing the
lone hand invariably, he would be a man I couldn't bring in in a
thousand years. But Galloway has slipped up; he has too many Moragas
and Antones and Vidals at his heels; he has been the cause, directly or
indirectly, of too many killings. . . . A theft will be forgotten in
time, the hue and cry die down; spilled blood cries to heaven after ten
years."
"Galloway is back in San Juan."
"I know. I wanted him back. I wanted him free and unhampered. He'll
be bolder than ever now, won't he, if this case is dropped? He's come
out a little into the open already, he'll be tempted out a little
farther. There'll be more of his work soon, a robbery here or there,
and he will grow so sure of himself that he'll get careless. Then I'll
get him."
"But have you the right?" she asked quickly. "Knowing him a
lawbreaker, have you the right to allow him to go farther and farther,
just because in the end you hope to get him?"
He met her look with a smile which puzzled her.
"I'll answer your question when you define right and wrong for me," he
said quietly.
They grew silent together, watching the gradual sinking of day into
twilight and early dusk. Norton, for all his vaunted ravings, had
grown thoughtful; Virginia turning her eyes toward him while his were
staring out beyond the house-tops saw in them a look of deep, frowning
speculation. And through this look, like a little fire gleaming
through a fog, was another look whose meaning baffled her.
"What do you think of Patten?" he asked.
Startled by his abruptness, characteristic of him though it was to-day,
she asked in puzzled fashion:
"What do you mean?"
"Not as a man," he said, withdrawing his gaze from the sunset and
bestowing it gravely upon her. "As a physician. Do you size him up as
capable or as something of a quack?"
She hesitated. But finally she made the only reply possible.
"Of course you don't expect any answer, knowing that you should not
come to one member of a profession for an estimate of another. And,
besides, you realize that I know nothing whatever of Dr. Patten, either
as a man or as a physician."
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|