Inadvertently, however, he caught Jimmy about the neck, leaving both his intended victim's arms free with the result that the latter was able to seize his antagonist low down about the body, and then pressing him close to him and hurling himself suddenly forward, he threw the fellow backward upon the cement sidewalk with his own body on top. With a resounding whack the attacker's head came in contact with the concrete, his arms relaxed their hold upon Jimmy's neck, and as the latter arose he saw both his assailants, temporarily at least, out of the fighting.
Jimmy glanced hastily in both directions. There was no one in sight.
His boardinghouse was but a few steps away, and two minutes later he was safe in his room.
"A year ago," he thought to himself, smiling, "my first thought would have been to have called in the police, but the Lizard has evidently given me a new view-point in regard to them," for the latter had impressed upon Jimmy the fact that whatever knowledge a policeman might have regarding one was always acquired with the idea that eventually it might be used against the person to whom it pertained.
"What a policeman don't know about you will never hurt you," was one way that the Lizard put it.
When Jimmy appeared in the shop the next morning he noted casually that Krovac had a cut upon his chin, but he did not give the matter a second thought. Bince had arrived late. His first question, as he entered the small outer office where Mr. Compton's stenographer and his worked, was addressed to Miss Edith Hudson.
"Is Mr. Torrance down yet?" he asked.
"Yes," replied the girl, "he has been here some time. Do you wish to see him?"
Edith thought that the "No" which he snapped at her was a trifle more emphatic than the circumstances seemed to warrant, nor could she help but notice after he had entered his office the vehement manner in which he slammed the door.
"I wonder what's eating him," thought Miss Hudson to herself. "Of course he doesn't like Jimmy, but why is he so peeved because Jimmy came to work this morning--I don't quite get it."
Almost immediately Bince sent for Krovac, and when the latter came and stood before his desk the assistant general manager looked up at him questioningly.
"Well?" he asked.
"Look at my chin," was Krovac's reply, "and he damn near killed the other guy."
"Maybe you'll have better luck the next time," growled Bince.
"There ain't goin' to be no next time," asserted Krovac. "I don't tackle that guy again."
Bince held out his hand.
"All right," he said, "you might return the fifty then."
"Return nothin'," growled Krovac. "I sure done fifty dollars' worth last night."
"Come on," said Bince, "hand over the fifty."
"Nothin' doin'," said Krovac with an angry snarl. "It might be worth another fifty to you to know that I wasn't going to tell old man Compton."
"You damn scoundrel!" exclaimed Bince.
"Don't go callin' me names," admonished Krovac. "A fellow that hires another to croak a man for him for one hundred bucks ain't got no license to call nobody names."
Bince realized only too well that he was absolutely in the power of the fellow and immediately his manner changed.
"Come," he said, "Krovac, there is no use in our quarreling. You can help me and I can help you. There must be some other way to get around this."
"What are you trying to do?" asked Krovac. "I got enough on you now to send you up, and I don't mind tellin' yuh," he added, "that I had a guy hid down there in the shop where he could watch you drop the envelope behind my machine. I got a witness, yuh understand!"
Mr. Bince did understand, but still he managed to control his temper.
"What of it?" he said. "Nobody would believe your story, but let's forget that. What we want to do is get rid of Torrance."
"That isn't all you want to do," said Krovac. "There is something else."
Bince realized that he was compromised as hopelessly already as he could be if the man had even more information.
"Yes," he said, "there is something beside Torrance's interference in the shop. He's interfering with our accounting system and I don't want it interfered with just now."
"You mean the pay-roll?" asked Krovac.
"It might be," said Bince.
"You want them two new guys that are working in the office croaked, too?" asked Krovac.
"I don't want anybody 'croaked', "replied Bince. "I didn't tell you to kill Torrance in the first place. I just said I didn't want him to come back here to work."
"Ah, hell, what you givin' us?" growled the other. "I knew what you meant and you knew what you meant, too. Come across straight. What do you want?"
"I want all the records of the certified public accountants who are working here," said Bince after a moment's pause. "I want them destroyed, together with the pay-roll records."
"Where are they?"
"They will all be in the safe in Mr. Compton's office."
Krovac knitted his brows in thought for several moments. "Say," he said, "we can do the whole thing with one job."
"What do you mean?" asked Bince, "We can get rid of this Torrance guy and get the records, too."
"How?" asked Bince. "Do you know where Feinheimer's is?"
"Yes."
"Well, you be over there to-night about ten thirty and I'll introduce you to a guy who can pull off this whole thing, and you and I won't have to be mixed up in it at all."
"To-night at ten thirty," said Bince.
"At Feinheimer's," said Krovac.