Word: squealer
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Dates: during 1928-1928
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...Squealer. Among the more spirited of Manhattan's antiquarians is Mark Linder; he wrote a play from which lamed Mae West evolved the picturesque excitement of Diamond Lil; now he has scratched up further blood and thunder about San Francisco's underworld, 22 years ago. It is a candid melodrama, of vice rampant and virtue triumphant; yet its most bitter climaxes are meant to be accepted and enjoyed in a somewhat mocking spirit. The audience will gloat, not shiver, when a character says: "I'll get you for this, Logan, if it takes me twenty years...
...squealer" is a thief who betrays thieves. The squealer about whom Author Wallace has written is also a receiver of stolen goods; when a robber refuses the meagre price which he offers for purloined bonds or jewels, the squealer tells the police on him. This is an insult rather than an injury to the police. The wily foxes who play in Scotland Yard resent the squealer's impudently informative gratuities. Especially, one Detective Barrabal who "stroked his silky moustache ... with half-closed eyes. 'Squealer,' he said softly, 'I'm going to get you!' " But so multifarious are the disguises...
...could not be Lew Friedman because the finger of suspicion points at him too soon; nor will the astute reader mistake Tillman's inscrutability for that of a "squealer." Who wishes to marry Beryl Stedman although, she, while she admires his generous, open nature, cannot bring herself to love him? Is not the squealer suspected of being a bigamist and is not merry Frank Sutton overfamiliar with his gaudy secretary? In the big unmasking scene at the end of the book, everything is neatly explained. Sutton is indeed the squealer and he will hang for his bad acts; his secretary...