"Always. Ran a joint on Fillmore Street after the big earthquake, and before San Francisco came back down-town."
"A gambler," she spoke the word just above her breath, as though trying it out with herself. "A man who took big chances—risks."
"Not Steve," I smiled at her earnestness. "Steve was a piker always—a tin-horn gambler. Hid away from the police instead of doing business with them. Take a chance? Not Steve."
Worth had left the telephone and was leaning over her shoulder to read what she had typed.
"Exactly and precisely," he said, "the same words you had in that other fool description of him."
"Of whom?"
"Clayte."
Worth let me have the one word straight between the eyes, and I leaned back in my chair, the breath almost knocked out of me by it. By an effort I pulled myself together and turned to the girl:
"Take dictation, please: Skeel's eyes are wide apart, rather small but keen—"
And for the next few minutes I was making words mean something, drawing a picture of the Skeels I knew, so that others could visualize him. And it brought me a word of commendation from Miss Wallace, and made Worth exclaim,