"The Roman father is an old _cliché_," continued Storm's quiet, even, compelling voice--quiet enough it was in actual physical fact, but the explosive, dominating exclamation marks stabbed everywhere, relentlessly, through the superficial placidity. "But I'm on the road with a new line of goods: the Roman son! You can't expect mercy from me. If you do, you're wasting good day-dreams. You've killed men. One man you killed with your own hands, so Prester John told me, and I'm inclined to believe him. Loonies--conceited loonies--like you, don't take much stock of a human life or two when their own hides are in danger of being tanned. I've killed men, too, but not to salve my head-swelling. Because you're a murderer you've got to die. That's the law, and in your particular case I think it's a damned sound law. So sound that I'm here to supervise, personally, the carrying out of the sentence. Maybe you thought you were one hell of a bright boy catching me first shot with that taxi gambit. Your fourth guess! A babe in arms 'd've seen that springe. It stuck out ten miles! I let myself be roped because I didn't know where to find you, and finding you happened to be the most important act in the play. You thought you'd got a sucker, and now you've got to get it into the ivory over your ears that I'm a red-hot Tartar. I'm out gunning for Triangles! Once you're off the map I'm going to bounce Lew, and anyone else who horns in on the bouncing 'll get a free passage to Hell along with him. Lew won't be the only one. I guess the world can muddle along well enough without Gat either, for that matter, and there're a few others who'll share the same cemetery." Morini himself was erect now, and the finger which crooked round the hair-trigger of his automatic quivered eagerly. His baby blue eyes were cold. A man of good education and more than average intelligence, he was able to judge exactly how risky every second of Storm's continued life was. Morini wasn't fool enough to mistake case-hardened facts for an empty bluff. "Say the word, Chief," he grated. "You can't keep him now. He knows too much. If he gets away we're all done, and he's so slippery you can't guarantee to hold him till he's dead."