and a pulse in her throat beating visibly at a sudden leap of her heart when he assailed her and her white hands clasped and unclasped the ponderous arms of the oaken chair.
Calvin assigned his mind to other affairs, recalling how Heminway had mentioned to him, just before he had left the Criminal Court building, that Considine was dead and had maintained silence as to the identity of his assailant.
"Nobody's talking," Heminway had added. "And nobody will. They're going to 'shoot it out.'"
"They," as Calvin well knew, were the members of the numerous and violent guilds of young men and girls who, to most practical purposes, went their ways beyond reach of the law in and about this great midland center of American civilization.
"They" operated the gambling joints, disreputable dance-halls, roadhouses and pool-rooms patronized by the citizenry; "they" robbed outright, at the point of the pistol, when it so pleased them; "they" held up, blackmailed and bootlegged. Frequently, and it seemed to Calvin that the gentlemen of the gun resorted to this for the spice of danger in it, they "hi-jacked" one another; that is, one rum-runner held up another upon the highway and captured his truck-loads of illegal liquor.
The late Mr. Considine seemed to have conducted some such an operation against a fleet of trucks owned by George Baretta, and the report of the matter to Three-G. George undoubtedly was the forerunner of Considine's prompt demise. The difficulty of proving this fact, which no informed person did doubt, was well exemplified by Mr. Considine's discreet silence to his last.
Probably two motives influenced him; one, fear that his family and friends might immediately suffer his fate if he spoke; second, a preference to trust for vengeance
