"Where shall we go?" he asked.

"We will go to some prominent restaurant."

"But, madam, I have not seen your face."

"There is no reason why I should not remove my veil. I will do so when we are seated at a table. Let me tell you my experience is a very strange one. I have a very extraordinary story to relate. I know you will become interested; I know you will decide to serve me if you will only let me narrate my startling experience."

"You shall certainly have an opportunity to relate your experience, madam."

"Miss Lamb told me I could rely upon your generosity, but let me tell you I do not expect that you will serve me simply in a spirit of chivalry. If you can extricate me from my very singular entanglement I will be in a position to reward you in the most munificent manner, but it will require brains, courage and coolness to release me."

"Madam, I will not claim any of these qualities in advance, but I will accompany you and listen to your strange tale. I am interested in odd experiences; it is my infirmity."

"I have been informed that you have no infirmities; that you are a bold, resolute, keen, level-headed gentleman."

Our hero smiled and said:

"Shall I select the place where we shall go?"

"If you please."

"You do not seek privacy?"

"Only so far as I can relate my story and be heard by you alone, and let me tell you I may do you a great service while you are serving me."

"That will be splendid," said Oscar.

He walked with the veiled woman to a well-known restaurant. He led her to a table in a remote corner, and the moment they were seated she removed her veil and disclosed a very beautiful face. She was evidently an American woman, and our hero had detected a Yankee p.r.o.nunciation, but he was thoughtful enough to know that the down east idiom might be a.s.sumed. We will here say that his suspicions of the woman had not relaxed, but when he beheld her fair, beautiful face his suspicion was just a little staggered.

As indicated, Oscar had not dismissed his suspicions entirely, and he waited wonderingly for the woman to open up her business.

"You have never beheld my face before?" she said.

"Never."

"It may seem bold for a positive stranger to ask a favor, but as I said this is a matter which requires very delicate manipulation. I cannot trust every one, not even among the corps of detectives."

"And yet you feel that you can trust me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I believe that combined with shrewdness, courage and cunning you possess a sympathetic nature."

"You are very complimentary."

"My informant was Miss Lamb."

"Miss Lamb has evidently spoken very kindly of me."

"Yes, she thinks you are a fine type of honorable manhood."

"Miss, please do not compliment me any further through your acquaintance with Miss Lamb. Please explain the nature of the business that led you to seek me."

"Before I explain my business to you I must exact a promise."

"I am careful about making promises."

"Yes, I know as a detective you are not at liberty to make promises off-hand, but my case is a very peculiar one."

"What do you wish me to promise?"

"I have a very remarkable disclosure to make; probably one of the most remarkable disclosures you ever listened to during the whole course of your professional career. It is a disclosure that will call for very prompt measures on your part. It is a disclosure that will make you professionally one of the most famous detective officers in the world."

Oscar stared and wondered what could be the nature of this thrilling disclosure. He said nothing, but kept upon a line of intense thought, and the woman proceeding said:

"Some very prominent people will be involved--men who stand high, who will be torn from their high estate. I am willing that you should perform your full professional duty, save as concerns one individual, and I want you to promise that you will save that one individual, though he may be the most guilty of the whole gang of criminals."

The woman's proposition was suggested, and it was a most remarkable one.

"Can you promise?" she asked.

"I cannot."

"Then my lips must remain sealed."

"I am sorry, miss, but I cannot promise to spare a criminal. I am bound by professional honor to close in on every criminal whom I can convict."

"Then, as I said, my lips must remain sealed."

"What are your relations to the individual who is a criminal and whom you desire exempted from the consequences of his acts?"

"He is my brother. Yes, sir, and in coming to you I am betraying my dear brother; but I would do so only to save him from the consequences of his crime. If I cannot save him I cannot betray him, but I do think that when I reveal to you the plot and ident.i.ties of many criminals in return I should receive the promise of the exemption of one of them--that one, my own brother."

"I will not positively declare that I will not make the promise; it will depend upon the nature of the disclosure. Will you indicate the character of the disclosure you have to make?"

"I will."

"Do so."

"There is existing in this city a band, an organized gang of the most skillful criminals on earth. Their organization is so complete that a discipline as perfect as military order prevails. These men have defied the police for years; they are doing more harm to the commercial world than ever was suffered before in many years. My brother is a member of this gang. Misfortune overtook him, and in a moment of desperation he became a member, a sworn member. He is very useful to them, owing to his skill in certain directions. He has made a confidant of me. He has told me everything and I, after a long struggle with myself, determined to save him if I could by betraying his confederates. I know all their ident.i.ties. I know all their plans. I can place them bound hand and foot in your power, but my brother must be saved. It is to save him that I am prepared to make the terrible disclosure. You will become famous; you will achieve a professional victory where all other detectives have failed. You will do the country a service such as no detective ever before performed, but the price of my disclosure is the salvation of my brother."

"Why do you not cause your brother to withdraw from these criminals?"

"I cannot. I have exhausted my persuasion with him. He is mad, mad, believes he is on the eve of the acquirement of great wealth. To be rich is his mania. He is really insane. I wish to save him. I can do so only by a betrayal of his confederates, and a disclosure of all their plans and devices as revealed to me by my brother."

Oscar was amazed in spite of his inurement to surprises. He was aghast at the suggestions involved in the woman's proposition, and he had cause for deep study. It was a singular fact that from the first moment the beautiful woman spoke to him he a.s.sociated her with the matter he had in hand, but did not antic.i.p.ate that her connection with the subject would come in the strange, weird shape that it did.