Summary
In the first chapter, Pinkie takes Spicer alone to the races. He tells Spicer that their gang will be peaceful from now on. Spicer places a bet on a horse called Memento Mori and tells Pinkie that he has heard a woman (this is Ida) has placed a large bet on Black Boy, the horse that Hale had favored. Although Pinkie doubts Hale's luck, Black Boy does in fact win. All of a sudden, Pinkie and Spicer are surrounded and attacked by Colleoni's men. Pinkie escapes and presumes Spicer dead. He goes to Snow's and meets with Rose. It seems that his only option is to marry her in order to prevent her from testifying against him, as a wife is not allowed to. For this purpose, he consults Mr. Prewitt, a mob lawyer, who tells him that despite his and Rose's youth, the marriage can be managed. Pinkie is surprised to find that Spicer is still alive.
In the second chapter, Ida tries to question Rose at Snow's again. Rose bluffs that she knows what Pinkie has been doing, and Ida warns her that he does not love her.
In the third chapter, Pinkie has just pushed Spicer down the stairs to his death, blaming it on the broken balustrade. Mr. Prewitt and Dallow, who are at the scene but did not witness what really happened, do not try to look in further. He goes to Snow's and finds Ida questioning a cornered Rose. Ida leaves, and Rose promises him that she will be faithful to him whatever he is.
Analysis
The first chapter shows Pinkie at one of his most manipulative and devious moments, giving Spicer false assurances and playing on their friendship -- including denouncing Cubitt and Dallow as violent -- in order to set him up; it is implied that he arranged with Colleoni for Spicer's death at the hands of Colleoni's men. Thus, he is unpleasantly surprised when it turns out that Spicer is alive; we are keyed into the suspiciousness of the situation by the narration itself, with Pinkie assuming very quickly and telling Rose that Spicer is dead, even though he did not witness his death. This entire set-up foreshadows Pinkie's attempted disposal of Rose by pressuring her into suicide, which is also done primarily through deception.
Although Pinkie mainly wants to get rid of the two people who know about his murder of Hale and who might say something to incriminate him -- namely, Spicer and Rose -- he finds himself coming into an uncanny, closer connection with Rose that lies beyond the scope of the pragmatic deception he is trying to maintain. He does not open himself entirely to their affinity but nevertheless is aware of it:
It was Nelson Place and Manor Street which stood there in the servant's bedroom, and for a moment he felt no antagonism but a faint nostalgia. He was aware that she belonged to his life, like a room or a chair: she was something which completed him….What was most evil in him needed her: it couldn't get along without goodness….She was good, he'd discovered that, and he was damned: they were made for each other (135).
There are different possible ways of interpreting this union of opposites between Pinkie and Rose. One is that to be very evil or to be very good, as the priest explains in the final chapter of the book, is something particular to Catholics—as opposed to people like Ida, who are neither one nor the other, but somewhere much more mediocre. Another is that for Pinkie's own character, it is important for his going very far towards one pole that he have the image of the other pole so that he can exorcise it from himself.
