She was in HIS house. "Go
on," he said tersely.
"Do you know, or did you ever hear of old Luther Doyle?" she asked.
"No," said Jimmie Dale.
"Do you know a man, then, named Connie Myers?"
Connie Myers! Who in the Bad Lands did not know Connie Myers, who
boasted of the half dozen prison sentences already to his credit? Yes;
he knew Connie Myers! But, strangely enough, it was not in the Bad Lands
or as Larry the Bat that he knew the man, or that the other knew him--it
was as Jimmie Dale. Connie Myers had introduced himself one night
several years ago with a blackjack that had just missed its mark as the
man had jumped out from a dark alleyway on the East Side, and he, Jimmie
Dale, had thrashed the other to within an inch of his life. He had
reason to know Connie Myers--and Connie Myers had reason to remember
him!
"Yes," he said, with a grim smile; "I know Connie Myers."
"And the tenement across the street from where you live as Larry the
Bat--that, of course, you know." He leaned toward her wonderingly now.
"Of course!" he ejaculated. "Naturally!"
"Listen, then, Jimmie!" She was speaking quickly now. "It is a strange
story. This Luther Doyle was already over fifty, when, some eight or
nine years ago, his parents died within a few months of each other,
and he inherited somewhere in the neighbourhood of a hundred thousand
dollars; but the man, though harmless enough, was mildly insane,
half-witted, queer, and the old couple, on account of their son's mental
defects, took care to leave the money securely invested, and so that he
could only touch the interest.
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