"She's in it up to her neck with us," said Byan. "We saw to that. All right. If we should go up against it, she'd have a hell of a time proving to a jury that she didn't know what her letters to customers were all about. Now wouldn't she? Ask yourself. Looked like hard luck to me when she saw that letter just when she'd slapped the face of this Cowler. But maybe it's a regular godsend. Put it to her straight that this business is a graft, that we're due to go up against it in three weeks unless something nice happens, and that she's in it as deep as any of us. When she's so scared she can't see, let her know that she has got one way out--fall for Cowler and help us touch him for his hundred thousand. Make her think that it's the stir sure if she don't, and a clean getaway if she does." "Suppose," continued Warner in the manner of one weighing every chance, "she goes with her troubles to some wise guy?" "She's got no friends here," said Byan. "I looked into that. Runs around with one fluff, but she don't count. If she's scared enough, I tell you, she'll never dare peep--and she'll come round." "Suppose she beats it?" suggested Warner. "Well, Mike and I can shadow her, can't we?" replied Byan. "If she tries to get out by rail, we can stop her and put on the screws right away. The screws!" repeated Byan, as one who liked the idea. "And if she does hold out a while, nothin's lost. You've got the old dope worked up to the idea she's interested in him, haven't you? Well, if she don't fall right away, you can take a little time explaining to him why she acted that way last night. Maybe best to dangle her a while, anyway--get him so anxious to see her that he'll fall for anything when you bring her round. I'll be tightening up the screws, and when he's ripe I'll deliver her." "The screws," repeated O'Hearn. "Meanin'--?" "Leave that to me," said Byan. "I know how." Warner smiled; but it was not the genial beam of his office manner. For when the corners of his drooping mouth lifted, they showed merely a gleam of canine teeth, which lay on his lip like fangs. "I suppose, when it's over, she's your personal property," he concluded. "Oh, sure!" responded Byan carelessly. "You'll not--" began O'Hearn; but this time it was Warner who interrupted. "Mickey," he said, "any arrangements between this lady and Byan are their own private affair--after the touch-off, which may stand you twenty-five thousand shiners. Besides--" He did not make his threatening gesture now, but merely flashed that smile of fangs and sinister suggestion. Then he rose. "All right," he said. "Come on--all of you--and I'll give her that little business talk, before she's had time to think and work up another notion. Maybe she'll fall for it right away." "Not right away, she won't," Byan promulgated from the depths of his experience, "but before I'm through, she will." * * * * *