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A Self-made Thief (World Cultural Heritage Library)
A Self-made Thief - World Cultural Heritage Library Author:Hulbert Footner CONTENTS — I. THE WAGER — II. PREPARATIONS — III. HOW IT PANNED OUT — IV. THE WHARF-RAT — V. THE ALIBI — VI. DAY-DREAMS — VII. ACTION — VIII. 23 DEEPDENE ROAD — IX. SHOP TALK — X. ALCORNE — XI. THE FIRST SHOT — XII. THE GAMBLING HOUSE — XIII. A PAST MASTER?S JOB — XIV. THE UNION CENTRAL HOLD-UP — XV. AT MADAME CORIOLI?S — XVI. HEBERDON PROPOSES — XVII. ALCORNE G... more »ETS SQUARE
XVIII. THE WEDDING PARTY
XIX. THE BARAGLIESI CUP
XX. HEBERDON GOES TO BALTIMORE
XXI. HEBERDON LEASES A HOUSE
XXII. AFTERMATH
XXIII. THE OTHER MAN
XXIV. THE PLOT
XXV. THE PLOT IS PUT INTO EFFECT
XXVI. BEGINNING OF THE END
Excerpt:
CHAPTER I ? THE WAGER
In the little card-room upstairs at the staid old Chronos Club on Gramercy Park a heated argument was going on. It was late on a night something like two years ago, and a long succession of refreshments from the bar downstairs was, without doubt, contributing to the heat.
Heberdon, Spurway, Hanwell and Nedham, excellent fellows all, and good friends, had become involved in a discussion which had nothing to do with the game of bridge, and the cards were now lying unheeded on the table, while the players scowled and shook their fingers at each other, and otherwise went through the absurd pantomime of gentlemen annoyed with each other.
?You don?t know what you?re talking about!?
?Oh, I don?t, don?t I? Do you??
?You talk as if you were the fount of all wisdom, and we were humble worshippers at the shrine.?
?Your metaphors are mixed.?
?Give us credit for some sense, Frank.?
?I will, when you show any.?
And so on. It appeared not to be a battle royal, but a case of three against one, Heberdon being the one. He was making certain asseverations on the subject of crime and criminals which the others violently and scornfully combated. Heberdon was a lawyer in his early thirties, a good-looking man of a pale, correct and regular cast of features, and of a demeanour exact and punctilious to match. He appeared to be the calmest of the quartet, but it was a calmness more apparent than real; he had his features under better control, that was all.
Like most men of his type, his cold and inscrutable exterior concealed an unbounded egoism and a mule like obstinacy. Opposition put him in a cold fury contradict him often enough, and he would go to any lengths to justify himself. This weakness of character was well known to his friends, and in the beginning they had had no object, save to amuse themselves by baiting him, but in doing so, as is not infrequently the case, they had lost their own tempers--all about nothing.
It had started innocently enough. Heberdon, shuffling the cards, had remarked in accents of scorn, ?I see the police have got Corby.?