"That will only square matters with Desmond; it doesn't leave me anything to go on with," and he pocketed his cheque with a scowl.
Plank was discreetly silent.
"And that is not what I chased you for, either," continued Mortimer.

"I didn't intend to say anything about Desmond; I was going to fix it in another way!" He cast an involuntary and sinister glance at the elevators gliding ceaselessly up and down at the end of the vast marble rotunda; then his protruding eyes sought Plank's again: "Beverly, old boy, I've got a certain mealy-faced hypocrite where any decent man would like to have him--by the scruff of his neck.

He's fit only to kick; and I'm going to kick him good and plenty; and in the process he's going to let go of several things." Mortimer leered, pleased with his own similes, then added rather hastily: "I mean, he's going to drop several things that don't belong to him.

Leave it to me to shake him down; he'll drop them all right.

...