"Why do you think that?" Gilder demanded, greatly puzzled.

Burke permitted himself the luxury of laughing appreciatively a moment more before making his exclamation. Then he said quietly:

"Because she didn't go there."

"Where did she go, then?" Gilder queried wholly at a loss.

Once again the officer chuckled. It was evident that he was well pleased with his own ingenuity.

"Nowhere yet," he said at last. "But, just about the time he's starting for the West I'll have her down at Headquarters. Demarest will have her indicted before noon. She'll go for trial in the afternoon. And to-morrow night she'll be sleeping up the river.... That's where she is going."

Gilder stood motionless for a moment. After all, he was an ordinary citizen, quite unfamiliar with the recondite methods familiar to the police.

"But," he said, wonderingly, "you can't do that."

The Inspector laughed, a laugh of disingenuous amus.e.m.e.nt, for he understood perfectly the lack of comprehension on the part of his hearer.

"Well," he said, and his voice sank into a modest rumble that was none the less still thunderous. "Perhaps I can't!" And then he beamed broadly, his whole face smiling blandly on the man who doubted his power. "Perhaps I can't," he repeated. Then the chuckle came again, and he added emphatically: "But I will!" Suddenly, his heavy face grew hard.

His alert eyes shone fiercely, with a flash of fire that was known to every patrolman who had ever reported to the desk when he was lieutenant. His heavy jaw shot forward aggressively as he spoke.

"Think I'm going to let that girl make a joke of the Police Department?

Why, I'm here to get her--to stop her anyhow. Her gang is going to break into your house to-night."

"What?" Gilder demanded. "You mean, she's coming here as a thief?"

"Not exactly," Inspector Burke confessed, "but her pals are coming to try to pull off something right here. She wouldn't come, not if I know her. She's too clever for that. Why, if she knew what Garson was planning to do, she'd stop him."

The Inspector paused suddenly. For a long minute his face was seamed with thought. Then, he smote his thigh with a blow strong enough to kill an ox. His face was radiant.

"By G.o.d! I've got her!" he cried. The inspiration for which he had longed was his at last. He went to the desk where the telephone was, and took up the receiver.

"Give me 3100 Spring," he said. As he waited for the connection he smiled widely on the astonished Gilder. "'Tain't too late," he said joyously. "I must have been losing my mind not to have thought of it before." The impact of sounds on his ear from the receiver set him to attention.

"Headquarters?" he called. "Inspector Burke speaking. Who's in my office? I want him quick." He smiled as he listened, and he spoke again to Gilder. "It's Smith, the best man I have. That's luck, if you ask me." Then again he spoke into the mouthpiece of the telephone.

"Oh, Ed, send some one up to that Turner woman. You have the address.

Just see that she is tipped off, that Joe Garson and some pals are going to break into Edward Gilder's house to-night. Get some stool-pigeon to hand her the information. You'd better get to work d.a.m.ned quick.

Understand?"

The Inspector pulled out that watch of which Aggie Lynch had spoken so avariciously, and glanced at it, then went on speaking:

"It's ten-thirty now. She went to the Lyric Theater with some woman. Get her as she leaves, or find her back at her own place later. You'll have to hustle, anyhow. That's all!"

The Inspector hung up the receiver and faced his host with a contented smile.

"What good will all that do?" Gilder demanded, impatiently.

Burke explained with a satisfaction natural to one who had devised something ingenious and adequate. This inspiration filled him with delight. At last he was sure of catching Mary Turner herself in his toils.

"She'll come to stop 'em," he said. "When we get the rest of the gang, we'll grab her, too. Why, I almost forgot her, thinking about Garson.

Mr. Gilder, you would hardly believe it, but there's scarcely been a real bit of forgery worth while done in this country for the last twenty years, that Garson hasn't been mixed up in. We've never once got him right in all that time." The Inspector paused to chuckle. "Crooks are funny," he explained with obvious contentment. "Clever as he is, Garson let Griggs talk him into a second-story job, and now we'll get him with the goods.... Just call your man for a minute, will you, Mr. Gilder?"

Gilder pressed the electric b.u.t.ton on his desk. At the same moment, through the octagonal window came a blinding flash of light that rested for seconds, then vanished. Burke, by no means a nervous man, nevertheless was startled by the mysterious radiance.

"What's that?" he demanded, sharply.

"It's the flashlight from the Metropolitan Tower," Gilder explained with a smile over the policeman's perturbation. "It swings around this way about every fifteen minutes. The servant forgot to draw the curtains."

As he spoke, he went to the window, and pulled the heavy draperies close. "It won't bother us again."

The entrance of the butler brought the Inspector's thoughts back to the matter in hand.

"My man," he said, authoritatively, "I want you to go up to the roof and open the scuttle. You'll find some men waiting up there. Bring 'em down here."

The servant's usually impa.s.sive face showed astonishment, not unmixed with dismay, and he looked doubtfully toward his master, who nodded rea.s.suringly.

"Oh, they won't hurt you," the Inspector declared, as he noticed the man's hesitation. "They're police officers. You get 'em down here, and then you go to bed and stay there till morning. Understand?"

Again, the butler looked at his master for guidance in this very peculiar affair, as he deemed it. Receiving another nod, he said:

"Very well, sir." He regarded the Inspector with a certain helpless indignation over this disturbance of the natural order, and left the room.

Gilder himself was puzzled over the situation, which was by no means clear to him.

"How do you know they're going to break into the house to-night?" he demanded of Burke; "or do you only think they're going to break into the house?"

"I know they are." The Inspector's harsh voice brought out the words boastfully. "I fixed it."

"You did!" There was wonder in the magnate's exclamation.

"Sure," Burke declared complacently, "did it through a stool-pigeon."

"Oh, an informer," Gilder interrupted, a little doubtfully.

"Yes," Burke agreed. "Stool-pigeon is the police name for him. Really, he's the vilest thing that crawls."

"But, if you think that," Gilder expostulated, "why do you have anything to do with that sort of person?"

"Because it's good business," the Inspector replied. "We know he's a spy and a traitor, and that every time he comes near us we ought to use a disinfectant. But we deal with him just the same--because we have to.

Now, the stool-pigeon in this trick is a swell English crook. He went to Garson yesterday with a scheme to rob your house. He tried out Mary Turner, too, but she wouldn't stand for it--said it would break the law, which is contrary to her principles. She told Garson to leave it alone.

But he met Griggs afterward without her knowing anything about it, and then he agreed to pull it off. Griggs got word to me that it's coming off to-night. And so, you see, Mr. Gilder, that's how I know. Do you get me?"

"I see," Gilder admitted without any enthusiasm. As a matter of fact, he felt somewhat offended that his house should be thus summarily seized as a trap for criminals.

"But why do you have your men come down over the roof?" he inquired curiously.

"It wasn't safe to bring them in the front way," was the Inspector's prompt reply. "It's a cinch the house is being watched. I wish you would let me have your latch-key. I want to come back, and make this collar myself."

The owner of the house obediently took the desired key from his ring and gave it to the Inspector with a shrug of resignation.