Carton laughed.
"Well, you are a brand new combination against them. Let me see; you want suggestions. Why don't you use the detectaphone—get our own little Black Book?"
Kennedy shook his head.
"The detectaphone is all right, as Dorgan knows. It might work again. But I don't think I'll take any chances. No, these grafters wouldn't say 'Thank you' in an open boat in mid-ocean, for fear of wireless, now. They've been educated up to a lot of things lately. No, it must be something new. What do you know about graft up there?"
"The people who are running those places in the fifties are making barrels of money," summarized Carton quickly. "No one ever interferes with them, either. I know from reliable sources, too, that the police are 'getting theirs.' But although I know it I can't prove it; I can't even tell who is getting it. But once a week a collector for the police calls around in that district and shakes them all down. By Jove, to-day is the day. The trouble with it all is that they have made the thing so underground that no one but the principals know anything about it—not even the agents. I guess you are right about the detectaphone."
"To-day's the day, is it?" mused Craig.
"So I understand."
"I think I can get them with a new machine they never dreamed of," exclaimed Kennedy, who had been turning something over in his mind.
He reached for the telephone and called the Montmartre.
"Julius, please," he said when they answered; then, placing his hand over the transmitter, he turned to Clare. "That was your friend the Titian, Miss Kendall."