"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 074 - Bells of Doom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

"Well, do some new thinking," ordered Hatch. "Look at it this way. You've made friends with Messler.
You can work from the inside. All you need is the mob to come in and grab the jewels when you give the
signal. It's a set-up."

"Yes," agreed Claverly, "I admit that my position would be a good one. I could work from the inside; you
from the outside. Nevertheless, the proposition has one fault."

"What's that?"

"It sounds too good."

"How do you mean?"

"The terms. A fifty-fifty split. Rather a generous concession on your part, Rosling. You could hire another
inside man for a lot less."
Rosling had begun to scowl; his expression changed as Claverly's statement ended. Rosling had an
answer. He gave it, frankly.

"Listen, Claverly," he asserted, "there's two reasons why we ought to go fifty-fifty. First, because you're
the best person I could get for the inside job. Second, because either one of us could queer the other.

"Suppose you worked from the inside and snagged those jewels by yourself. I'd know what you were
doing. I could take the swag away from you afterward. See? And suppose I came busting in with a job
of my own. You could gum it, couldn't you?

"Well - there's the lay. There's only one answer. Teamwork. A divvy. There's no catch to it. We talked
things over last night. What we decided on - well, it goes. That's all."

CLAVERLY considered it. Rosling watched him light a second cigarette from the stump of the first. Then
came a half minute of thought on Claverly's part. Finally, the young man spoke.

"All right, Hatch," he said. "You'll go after those jewels anyway. So we might as well talk turkey. You
figure that I can be around when Messler shows the gems to his friends."

"Yeah. You're going to be there. That's your part of the Job. Get it?"

"Very well. I suppose you will be watching to see that I take the opportunity."

"Yeah. You'll have to grab the first chance you get, or tell me the reason why."

"I've found that chance."

"You have? When?"

"Thursday night."

"You mean -"

"Messler talked after you left the smoking room," explained Claverly. "He spoke to Cranston and myself.