John Thomas McIntyre

What the old resident of Stanwick said to Bat Scanlon aroused that gentleman to a high pitch, and he began asking eager questions.

"I don't know where she goes," said the man. "I wish I did. But I've seen her two or three times, and she was just as spry as you'd want anybody to be. Sick! Sick nothing!"

Bat's questions continued for some time, but this was the only fact the old man had; and so the big athlete bade him good-night.

Scanlon thought it best not to go to the railroad station, for there he would be almost certain to encounter the Swiss and Big Slim. There was an electric road which cut through the far end of the suburb, and he concluded it were safer to use this into the city, even though it did take much more time.

"But everything's done for the night," said he. "I've got a few more things to think about, too. So what difference does a half hour or so make?"

Bat got to bed at his hotel at about midnight; but it was several hours later before he got to sleep, for the events of the night tossed and mingled in his mind in a most distracting fashion. Consequently, next day, he arose late, and when he reached the gymnasium it was almost noon. A note lay upon his desk in the office written in a well-known hand.

"I have taken the liberty of borrowing Danny," it read. "There is a matter of some importance which I desire to get at the bottom of, and a small red-haired boy is perhaps the best agent I could employ. Keep in touch with me.

"Ashton-Kirk."

Jimmy Casey, who taught the use of boxing gloves in the gymnasium, explained the matter.

"He comes here, in an awful rush, about ten o'clock," said Jimmy, "and wants to see you. When he finds out you ain't here, he says it's all right, and don't make no difference anyhow. So he goes into the office and talks to the kid. And maybe that kid ain't glad, or nothing. His mug looked like a tin pan that'd just been scoured. A couple of minutes later they beat it away in a cab."

"It's all right," said Mr. Scanlon. "Some little hurry-up business, I guess."

All day Bat worked steadily with his clients. Once in the afternoon he paused long enough to call Nora on the telephone. Her response was cheerful; indeed, she talked rather gaily of many things, and he finally hung up the receiver with a wrinkle of discontent between his brows.

As evening came he took a shower and a rub-down, and then went out for a stroll. He had no definite notion in his mind except that he wanted fresh air; but, somehow, his steps led him to the neighborhood of Bohlmier's hotel.

"Being here," said he, "I may as well go in and visit the halt and the lame. I wonder how much damage I did those two parties. Maybe I'll find them in their beds."

He entered the office. Behind the desk was the thick-necked young man with the low, stand-up collar.

"Hello," saluted Scanlon. "Where's the boss?"

"Not feeling right," replied the thick-necked one. "Got a cold, I guess. Settled in his throat."

Bat turned away with a grin hidden behind one hand. In the lounging room of the place he looked about for Big Slim; not seeing him, he ascended the stairs and knocked upon a door on the third floor.

"Come in," said the voice of the lank burglar.

Bat pushed open the door, and found the man standing in the middle of the floor, pulling on his coat.

"Just run up to see if I couldn't drag you off to get some eats," said Bat, cordially.

"I'm hungry," said the burglar, "but I don't know if I can work my face or not." He displayed a swollen region extending from his left eye to the angle of his jaw; besides being puffed and painful looking, it was badly discolored. "Get that? Some bump, eh?"

"I should say, yes," replied Scanlon. "How did it happen?"

"Last night," stated Big Slim. "I spotted a fellow in the dark who's turned a trick on a friend of mine. So I made a try to get him. But," with candor, "I didn't. He got me."

"Tough," sympathized Bat. "But wait! Maybe you'll have your chance to come back. You never can tell."

Big Slim grinned. With his distorted face this was not a pleasant sight, and the look in his eyes was sly and wicked.

"I'll get back," said he. "Leave it to me for that. I'll lay him out so stiff that a slab in the morgue'll be bent like a pretzel in comparison."

Bat looked at the man with all the unrestraint of the practiced negotiator.

"Who is he?" he asked, carelessly.

Again the sly, wicked look came into the eyes of the burglar.

"Don't be in a hurry," said he. "You'll know when the time comes."

Bat drew in a deep, silent breath at this; and when the burglar threw open the lid of a trunk, which he dragged from under the bed, and took from the tray a black, well-oiled automatic pistol, he felt a tightening of the scalp. But Big Slim put the weapon in his pocket.

"No one's ever tagged me out without me landing on his neck," declared he. "I do it one way or another, but I always do it."

They went down-stairs and Big Slim led the way into a back room. It was the same in which Bat had seen the Swiss playing the flute on the night of Nora's unaccountable visit. But Bohlmier was not at all musically inclined at this time.

"No, no," he was saying to the thick-necked young man, "I will nothing to eat have. I am seek! Ach, how I am seek!"

Big Slim looked at Scanlon and grinned; then he whispered behind his hand:

"He was in on the same lot of treatment. The guy got him before he did me." Then to Bohlmier he added: "How's the sore throat?"

"Bad," replied the Swiss, in a strained way. "I a doctor haf had. He said I was lucky that I was not killed."

"Well, you wasn't," said Big Slim. "So forget that part of it."

The eyes of Bohlmier, with a cat-like glare in them, went to Bat; then he motioned to the burglar, who bent over his chair. The Swiss whispered croakingly in the other's ear. Bat could get a word here and there, but not sufficient to make any sense of what was being said. Once or twice he saw the eyes of the two men turn upon him, and their eager expression—deadly and cunning—made him uneasy.

"Sure," he heard Big Slim say. "That's right. I didn't miss that trick."

Then the whispering resumed. He caught fragments, such as: "Get him down there." "Gaffney's." "I'll fix him, all right."

"Who, me?" said Bat, to himself, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other. "Do they really know I'm the party who put them on the hospital list? And are they framing it, right under my nose, to get even?"

He had heard of such things before—the fate of a victim planned in his hearing and he never the wiser for it. But he hunched his great shoulders and nodded his head. There were victims and victims. And if they tried to lead him into anything he resolved to do his best to prove to them that it was not a sheep they were handling.

"I'll make the proceedings much more interesting than last night's," he promised himself. "There was no 'follow up' then. This time there'll be plenty of it."

In a few moments more the burglar turned to Bat.

"Bohlmier wants us to go down and see a friend of ours," said he. "After we get some feed, you know."

"Sure," said Bat, readily. "Anything to be sociable."

They nodded to the Swiss, who sat following them with inflamed eyes as they left the room. Their journey through the dirty streets to Joey Loo's was a silent one; and as they entered the high-smelling, underground place and seated themselves, the silence was unbroken. One of the detached fragments which Scanlon had caught, a few minutes before, kept recurring to him.

"Gaffney's!" flashed and reflashed through his mind. He paid no attention to it at first; but the mere repetition of the name finally claimed his attention.

"Gaffney's!" He considered it thoughtfully as Big Slim talked to the Chinaman who came to serve them. "Why, yes; didn't I hear that name somewhere before? And not so long ago, unless I'm much mistaken."

He pondered; but where he had heard it refused to come back, and so he dismissed it from his mind. He gave his order to the stolid, greasy-looking Oriental; and then, looking about the place, said to his companion:

"Funny looking crowd, eh?"

Big Slim allowed his eyes to flit about from one pale, hollow face to another.

"There's enough to start a 'snow' party right here, if you had the stuff," said he. "I could pick you out twenty customers without making a mistake."

"It beats booze, that stuff," said Bat. "I've seen some tough examples of how it worked."

"Great business," said Big Slim, a covetous glint in his eyes. "Big money in it. I'd like to raise a nice stake and get hold of a lot of 'snow.' I'll bet I'd take in more real change than a gambling house."

"Stick to cracking cribs," begged Bat "It's got more stuff in it for a man with nerve."

"Listen," said the lank burglar as he leaned across the table, "using your nerve all the time ain't what they tell you it is. Nerve ain't with you always; and when it's all warped and faded with hard usage, that's all you get. If you can't buy more and you can't patch up the old, what are you going to do? So why not a corner in the dope market as an easy graft?"

"It don't listen good," said Bat, positively. "I'd rather get a big name for opening babies' banks. It wouldn't sting so much."

"You're a regular particular guy, ain't you?" Big Slim had a disagreeable grin on his thin-lipped mouth, and eyed Scanlon attentively. "You must have been well brought up."

They ate their food in comparative silence when it was brought; and as soon as they had finished the burglar pushed back his chair.

"Let's get down to Gaffney's," said he. He put his hand to his swollen face as they arose. "I've got a little trick to turn."

The streets were crowded with a mass of cheap pleasure seekers; the burlesque theatres and motion picture places were besieged with throngs; from the open fronts of auction houses the strident voices of the auctioneers rose in feeling appeals that every one grasp the opportunities offered. "Store show" keepers stood upon high, narrow platforms draped all about with canvases upon which were painted monstrous errors of nature and "wonders" fresh from far-off lands. There was a smell of uncleaned corners and open drains; the very mud of the streets held a greasy quality which made the unaccustomed passer shudder a little, and make haste.

And upon all this was thrown the glitter of many lights; from iron poles they hung in huge white domes; windows, filled with flashy merchandise, blazed with clusters of them; reeking alleys were exposed by the glare of their hanging lights as is a deep-set, poisonous sac by the scalpel of the surgeon. Illuminated signs of all sorts glared at one; some were lurid and stationary; others again flowed about in never ending contortions, making grotesque and high-pitched proclamations.

"Gaffney's round here somewhere?" asked Bat, after they had walked through the district for some little time.

"Just off here a little ways," replied the burglar. They turned a corner under the lee of a glaring saloon and found themselves in a small street which lay like a back-water off that thronged avenue. "There it is now."

Bat saw a dingy-looking place with the name "Gaffney" painted in red letters upon the window and two billiard cues in yellow crossed beneath it. They entered and were greeted by a babble of voices, an incessant clicking of balls and the thick odor of poor tobacco. Here and there games of more than ordinary interest were going on; the principals were, as a rule, fox-like young men who wore no coats and staked their handling of their cues against the world for a living. Small crowds were gathered about these contests; the "shots" were lightning-like, and of great precision.

Lining the walls were rows of men, some with vacant faces, others alert and predatory; and as Bat looked about, he noted what he had noted in such places many times before.

"A hang-out for quitters and a meeting-place for yeggs," he thought. "There's more good time wasted in places like this and more crooked deeds hatched than would put a roof over Lake Michigan."

With Big Slim, he took a station at the far end of the place; here and there was a doorway opening into a smaller room and in which more tables were erected.

"Get that fellow with the curly mop," said the burglar, indicating this doorway. "Inside there."

A middle-aged man in his shirt-sleeves, with a remarkably high collar and a shock of curling and very dark hair, was arranging the balls at one of the inner tables. The shirt sleeves were loudly striped and the curling hair was arranged in ornamental waves of which he seemed very vain; for as Bat watched, he saw the man gaze into a specked mirror and pass a hand carefully over them.

"He looks like the beginning of a parade," said Bat. "Who is he?"

"Name's Hutchinson, and he runs this place for Gaffney," replied Big Slim. "And," here he grinned and pulled at his bony fingers until they cracked, "he's a very intimate friend of a friend of mine."

"That so?" Scanlon looked at the man reflectively, and tried to think what possible bearing this could have on the matter which interested him. As far as he was able to see, it had none; but somehow the name Gaffney once more became active in his mind, and this troubled him.

"It's because it's painted on everything around the place," reasoned Bat. "The walls and the cue racks have it; and as I stand here I can see it done backwards on the front window. Gaffney means nothing in my young life, so what is his name bumping around in my head for?"

And then, just as he was on the verge of banishing it from his thoughts, a solution of the name's persistence flashed upon him. It had been used by Dennison that day at the Polo Club. He had called it after Ashton-Kirk as they were leaving.

"That's it!" was Bat's mute exclamation. "That's it. It was Dennison. He was telling us of how the Bounder said he was to meet some one—an off-color party—Dennison thought,—to arrange a little matter of business. And the meeting was to be at Gaffney's."

The big athlete thrilled at the idea. Was it possible that this obscure place was the one meant? But why not? It was just the sort of establishment the Bounder would have selected for a meeting with a crony of the underworld. And it was possible, too, that——

"A friend of a friend of yours," said Bat, to the man at his side. "Well, he might be all right, in spite of his looks."

"He used to deal faro at Danforth's place on the avenue," said Big Slim. "But he's down and out. Maybe," with another grin, "he tried the game himself."

"Sometimes they do," said Bat. "But it's like opening the door of an elevator shaft and walking through."

"He's great pals with a fellow named Fenton," said Big Slim. As he said this, one hand went to his coat pocket in a caressing sort of gesture; and Bat realized, with a ray of comprehension, that this was the pocket into which the burglar had slipped the black, well-oiled automatic. "They're like a couple of brothers."

"I see," said Bat. "A league of two, eh? Well, that's nice. It makes it handy for people who might want to see either of them. Find one and you're sure of the other."

Big Slim nursed the concealed weapon and grinned disagreeably.

"Hutchinson's here," said he, "and so I'm sure Fenton'll be here. And Fenton's the party I want to meet up with."

"I notice," observed Bat, with a downward nod, "that you are coddling your 'gat' some, and so I take it that this fellow Fenton and yourself ain't on good terms."

"Right," said the burglar, readily. "A good guess. We ain't." He took the hand from the pocket and pointed to his swollen face. "It was Fenton done that," said he. "And it was him that almost done for Bohlmier."

The eyes of the big athlete blinked rapidly at this, and he wanted to laugh! But he did not.

"So!" said he. "I get you. It was Fenton who decorated you with that 'shanty.' Well, well." He looked at the other speculatively and added: "But I thought you said it was dark. How did you know him?"

"Who else would be hanging around there?" demanded Big Slim, almost savagely. "Nobody else in the world."

"Hanging around where?" asked Bat, innocently.

Upon the point of replying, the burglar checked himself.

"It don't make any difference where," he said. "I got this on him, all right." There was a pause between them for a few moments, filled with the click-click of the balls, the comments of the spectators and the fervent ejaculations of the players. Then Big Slim said, in an altered tone: "Say, you put that thing over pretty slick on Allen that night at Duke Sheehan's; how'd you like to take on a job of slugging this guy?"

"This Fenton party?"

"Yes. He's bigger than I am—just as Allen was; and it'd be a bad chance if I 'gunned' him."

Scanlon realized instantly that if he refused the man's proposition there would be a blur in their relationship, and this might prevent the unfolding of several things which he felt must be unfolded. So he replied without hesitation:

"Let's have a look at him, if he comes in."

A table became vacant in the back room in a few minutes, and Bat and the burglar took possession of it. They had played for about a half hour when Big Slim, in a journey about the table, apparently to survey the balls from a new angle, said to Scanlon in a low tone:

"Spot the fellow with the broken nose, talking to Hutchinson. That's him."

While the burglar sighted and prepared for a difficult shot, Bat took occasion to inspect the man in question. He had just entered and seemed rather breathless; a cap was fitted down upon his head; he wore no overcoat and his coat collar was turned up, while the garment was buttoned tightly about him. Though only about middle size, he was strongly built and had a rugged, enduring look. His one prominent feature was his nose. This had been broken at some time or other and seemed absolutely boneless and flat.

"I've got him," said Bat. "There's no two noses like that anywhere."

Fenton talked rapidly to Hutchinson; he had the short-breathed, eager manner of a man who bore tidings of an unusual nature; his gestures were short and expressive of subconscious restraint The manager of the pool room stood listening, a look of stupefaction upon his face; and as Bat watched, he put out his hand and touched the other as though to assure himself that the situation was a reality and not a thing of the imagination. Then he emerged from his dazed state, becoming immediately alert; he said something to Fenton in a quick, nervous sort of way, and the man with the broken nose stopped at once in his eager career, yet with all the indications remaining of one who ached to disburden himself.

Hutchinson placed the care of the tables in the hands of a boy who assisted him, and then went with Fenton to a far corner where the disfigured one recommenced his interrupted communication.

"That guy's lucky to get away with a plain beating," remarked Big Slim, as he chalked his cue. "For I got something on him—something strong."

"That so?" said Scanlon, as he surveyed the array of balls on the table with a great deal of assumed attention.

"Remember what I told you about the woman and the 'sparks' I meant to lift?"

"Oh, yes," said Bat, without a quiver; "and the husband that beat you to it."

"The husband was croaked that night," said Big Slim, tossing the chalk upon a near-by window ledge. "And Fenton is the guy who did it."