Part 28 (1/2)

As the big car ahead slipped along eastward, we followed at such a distance as not to attract attention. It was easy enough to do that, but not so easy to avoid getting tied up among the trucks laden with foodstuffs of every description which blocked the streets over in this part of town.

Where the car ahead was bound, we did not know, but I could see that the driver was a stocky fellow, who slouched down into his seat, and handled his car almost as if it had been a mere toy. It was, I felt positive, the man whom McBirney had reported one night about the neighbourhood of Longacre Square in the car which had once been Warrington's. This, at least, was a different car, I knew. Now I realised the wisdom of allowing this man, whom they called the Boss, to go free. Under the influence of Garrick's ”plant,” he was to lead us to the right trail to the Chief.

It was easier now to follow the car since it had worked its way into lower Fifth Avenue. On uptown it went. We hung on doggedly in the ma.s.s of traffic going north at this congested hour.

At last it turned into Forty-seventh Street. It was stopping at the ladies' gambling joint, apparently to confirm the news. I had thought that the place was closed, until the present trouble blew over, but it seemed that there must be someone there. The Boss was evidently well known, for he was immediately admitted.

Garrick did not stop. He kept on around the corner to the raided poolroom on the next street. Dillon's man, who had been stationed there to watch the place, bowed and admitted him.

”I'm going to throw it into him good, this time,” remarked Garrick, as he entered. ”I've been planning this stunt for an emergency--and it's here. Now for the big scare!”

CHAPTER XX

THE SPEAKING ARC

”Looks pretty deserted here,” remarked Garrick to Dillon's man, who had accompanied us from the door into the now deserted gambling den.

”Yes,” he grinned, ”there's not much use in keeping me here since they took all the stuff to headquarters. Now and then one of the old rounders who has been out of town and hasn't heard of the raid comes in. You should see their faces change when they catch sight of my uniform. They never stop to ask questions,” he chuckled. ”They just beat it.”

I was wondering how the police regarded Garrick's part in the matter, and while Garrick was busy I asked, ”Have you seen Inspector Herman lately?”

The man laughed.

”What's the matter?” I asked, ”Is he sore at having the raid pulled off over his head?”

”Sore?” the roundsman repeated, ”Oh, not a bit, not a bit. He enjoyed it. It gave him so much credit,” the man added sarcastically, ”especially after he fell down in getting the evidence against that other place around the corner.”

”Was that his case, too?” I asked.

”Sure,” replied the policeman. ”Didn't you know that? That Rena Taylor was working under his orders when she was killed. They tell me at headquarters he's working overtime on the case and other things connected with it. He hasn't said much, but there's someone he is after--I know. Mark my words. Herman is always most dangerous when he's quiet. The other day he was in here, said there was a man who used to be seen here a good deal in the palmy days, who had disappeared. I don't know who he was, but Herman asked me to keep a particular lookout to see if he came back for any purpose. There's someone he suspects, all right.”

I wondered why the man told me. He must have seen, by the look on my face, that I was thinking that.

”I wouldn't tell it to everybody,” he added confidentially, ”only, most of us don't like Herman any too well. He's always trying to hog it all--gets all the credit if we pick up a clew, and,--well, most of us wouldn't be exactly disappointed to see Mr. Garrick succeed--that's all.”

Garrick was calling from the back room to me, and I excused myself, while the man went back to his post at the front door. Garrick carefully closed the door into the room.

While I had been busy getting the copies of the faked edition of the Star, which had so alarmed the owner of the garage and had set things moving rapidly, Garrick had also been busy, in another direction. He had explored not only the raided gambling den, but the little back yard which ran all the way to an extension on the rear of the house in the next street, in which was situated the woman's poolroom.

He had explored, also, the caved-in tunnel enough to make absolutely certain that his suspicions had been correct in the first place, and that it ran to this other joint, from which the gamblers had made their escape. That had satisfied him, however, and he had not unearthed the remains of the tunnel or taken any action in the matter yet. Something else appeared to interest him much more at the present moment.

”I found,” he said when he was sure that we were alone, ”that the feed wire of the arc light that burns all the time in that main room over there in the place on Forty-seventh Street--you recall it?--runs in through the back of the house.”

He was examining two wires which, from his manner, I inferred were attached to this feed wire, leading to it from the room in which we now were. What the purpose of the connection was I had no idea. Perhaps, I thought, it was designed to get new evidence against the place, though I could not guess how it was to be done. So far, except for what we had seen on our one visit, there had appeared to be no real evidence against the place, except, possibly, that which had died with the unfortunate Rena Taylor.

”What's that?” I asked, as Garrick produced a package from a closet where he had left it, earlier in the day.

I saw, after he had unwrapped it, that it was a very powerful microphone and a couple of storage cells. He attached it to the wire leading out to the electric light feed wire.