He KNEW you, and approached you with an offer to split the
money in return for the map. It was not a question of your accepting his
offer--it was simply a matter of how you could do it and still protect
yourself. The Weasel was well qualified to point the way--a fake robbery
of your house would answer the purpose admirably--you could not be held
either legally or morally responsible for a document that was placed,
unsolicited by you, in your possession, if it were stolen from you."
Mittel's face was ashen, colourless. His hands were opening and shutting
with nervous twitches on the top of the desk.
Jimmie Dale's lips curled.
"But"--Jimmie Dale was clipping off his words now viciously--"neither
you nor the Weasel were willing to trust the other implicitly--perhaps
you know each other too well. You were unwilling to turn over the map
until you had received your share of the money, and you were equally
unwilling to turn it over until you were SAFE; that is, until you had
engineered your fake robbery even to the point of notifying the police
that it had been committed; the Weasel, on the other hand, had some
scruples about parting with any of the money without getting the map in
one hand before he let go of the banknotes with the other. It was very
simply arranged, however, and to your mutual satisfaction. While you
robbed your own house this evening, he was to get half the money in
advance from Hamvert, giving Hamvert to understand that HE had planned
to commit the robbery himself to-night.
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