"That I can't tell until to-morrow."
"I don't think there'll be any to-morrow, for me," he rejoined, as his earlier listless look returned to his face. He even peered up a little startled, as I rose to my feet.
"That's nonsense," was my answer. "We're going to meet here to-morrow night to talk things over."
"But why?" he protested.
"Because it strikes me you've got a duty to perform, a very serious duty. And if I can be of any service to you it will be a very great pleasure to me. And in the meantime, I might add that I am paying for this little supper."
There is no activity more explosive than that of the chronic idler. Once out on Broadway, accordingly, I did not let the grass grow under my feet. Two minutes at the telephone and ten more in a taxicab brought me in touch with my old friend Doyle who was "working" a mulatto shooting case in lower Seventh Avenue as quietly as a gardener working his cabbage-patch.
"What do you know about a woman named Vinnie Brunelle?" I demanded.
He studied the pavement. Then he shook his head. The name clearly meant nothing to him.
"Give me something more to work on!"
"She's a young woman who lives by her wits. She keeps up a very good front, and now and then does a variety of the wire-tapping game."