Chapter 14
THE Kupie mystery was becoming even more involved. But out of the tangle emerged one fact: Kupie's life was deep-rooted in the underworld. The criminal gang of fiction had, as Jimmy knew, no existence. The master-brain who took his pick of the cleverest criminals at large was, however, a very frequent occurrence. There were men in town, clever, unscrupulous and well-to-do, who lived carefully on the right side of the law, and whose names did not appear in the contemporary histories of crime. They neither stole nor received; but the burglar who wanted money for a new kit of tools, the fugitive from justice who needed funds to effect his escape, the cardsharper who wanted capital, those knew where to go at the critical moment.
Some of these mysterious forces were known to Jim an
