The Mystery of the Four Fingers by Fred M. White

A feeling of helpless exasperation gripped Fenwick to the exclusion of all other emotions. Everything seemed to be going wrong just now; turn in any direction he pleased some obstacle blocked his path. Like most cunning criminals he could never quite dispossess himself of the idea that honesty and cleverness never went together. All honest men were fools of necessity, and therefore the legitimate prey of rogues like himself. And yet, though he was more or less confronted now with men of integrity, he was as helpless in their hands as if he had been a child. The maddening part of the whole thing was his inability to find anything to strike. He was like a general leading an army into the dark in a strange country, and knowing all the time that he had cunning unseen foes to fight.

Thoughts like these were uppermost in Fenwick's mind as he gazed in consternation about the little room from which Evors had vanished. So far as Fenwick knew, Evors had saved his life from Zary, but that had not prevented Fenwick from behaving in a dastardly fashion. It seemed to him as if Fate were playing into his hands by bringing Evors here at this moment. Hitherto he had found Evors such plastic material that he had never seriously considered him in the light of a foe. Now, for the first time, he saw how greatly he had been mistaken.