The Wealth Seeker

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EVENING had come to the bad lands of Manhattan. The fading of dingy dusk had brought an insidious gloom to the district which marked the strongholds of the underworld. Skulking figures of shifty mobsters, quick steps of persons bound on innocent business, the stalwart forms of patrolling policemen — these were the manifestations that marked the beginning of a new period of danger.

Gangdom had come to life after dark. Ways of crime, neglected while daylight held sway, were once more in the making. Every empty house, every deserted alleyway, might be the lurking spot where evil men awaited the word to wage war against the organized forces of the law.

This district was the breeding place of crime. Mobster hideouts and meeting places were all too frequent. Yet the police, although they knew the evils that existed, were handicapped by the very law which they served.

Unless violence broke out within the precinct, or orders were received to arrest men wanted for crime, the patrolling officers could make no legal inroads. They were forced to ignore the dives where crime was instigated; to wait until rats of the bad lands came forth and committed evil in respectable districts.

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