"Yes." Finburg's jaws relaxed the least bit to let a greedy tongue lick out. "Then you remember, probably, that quite a chunk of negotiable securities--bonds and things--wasn't never recovered?" "Yes, I recall." Finburg suggested a furtive jackal, tense with a mounting hunger and smelling afar off a bait of rich but forbidden food. "And that the trust company people offered a reward of ten thousand for the return of that stuff and no questions asked?" "Yes, go on." "Well, Finburg, you're smart but here's something you never knew before. I was in on that hold-up--I engineered it. And inside of three weeks afterwards, while I was waiting for the squawk over that job to die down, I came up here and got in this jam and had to plug this cop and they nailed me. But, Finburg, I've got a safe-deposit box in a bank on Third Avenue and I've got a key to it stuck away in another place where a pal's keeping it for me--a pal I can trust. I'll leave you guess what's in that safe-deposit box. Or, if you want me to, I'll tell--" "No, don't tell me--that would be illegal," said the lawyer very uneasily and yet very eagerly. "It would be more regular, you understand, if I didn't actually have knowledge of what the contents were--that is, beforehand. I've been double-crossed before by some of you hard-boiled people. There was the time when I almost worked my head off defending Roxie McGill and her mob for shoving phony money, and every time I think of how that McGill skirt slipped it over on me, when it came time to settle up"--he winced on what plainly was a most painful recollection--"well, it's made me careful, Tony, awfully careful. Not that I'm doubting you, understand. If a man can't trust a--" He broke off, looking, for him, a trifle embarrassed. "Say it!" prompted Scarra grimly. "If you can't trust a dying man you can't trust nobody--that's what you had in your mind, wasn't it? Well, I'm as good as dead right now and you won't never regret it, playing my game. It could be fixed up, according to law, couldn't it, like a will, that me not having any kinfolks, I was leaving you what was in that safe-deposit box on account of you having been my lawyer and having worked so hard for me?" "Oh, yes, I'd know how to phrase the instrument properly. There'd be no trouble about that, none whatever, Tony." "All right, then, you fix up the paper and I'll sign it right here any day it's ready. And I'll give you a written order on that pal of mine for the key, telling him to hand it over to you the day after I'm gone. You ain't got a thing to worry about. And in payment all you got to do for me is just the one little favor of getting that little pill made up and--" "I'm telling you there's entirely too much risk," interrupted Finburg, in a timorous sweat of almost over-powering temptation, but still clinging to safety. "I wouldn't dare risk trying to slip you poison, Tony--I couldn't." "Nobody's asking you to."