And in that respect, at least, he was honest with
himself. Almost the first words he said to me were: 'Miss LaSalle, I am
as good as a dead man if I am caught by the devils behind those two men
downstairs.' And then he began to plead with me to make my own escape.
He did not know who the man was that was posing as my uncle, had never
seen him before until he presented himself as Henry LaSalle; the other
man he knew as Clarke, but knew also that 'Clarke' was merely an assumed
name. He had fallen in with Clarke almost from the time that he had
begun to practise his profession, and at Clarke's instigation had gone
from one crooked deal to another, and had made a great deal of money. He
knew that behind Clarke was a powerful, daring, and unscrupulous band of
criminals, organised on a gigantic scale, of which he himself was, in
a sense--a probationary sense, as he put it--a member; but he had never
come into direct contact with them--he had received all his orders and
instructions through Clarke. He had been told by Clarke that he was to
cultivate father following the introduction, to win father's confidence,
to get as many of father's affairs into his hands as possible, to reach
the position, in fact, of becoming father's recognised attorney--and
all this with the object, as he supposed of embezzling from father on
a large scale.
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