The Origin of the Double-CrossHow a ledger mark became a death sentence

From the show

History of Phrases

Trace the chilling bureaucratic roots of a common idiom to 18th-century London. Crime lord Jonathan Wild maintained a secret ledger of thieves he employed while posing as a law enforcer. A single mark meant employment, but a second signaled the thief was worth more dead than alive. This calculated accounting trick defined the ultimate betrayal.