Kouka laughed. He was in fine humor that morning.
"Oh, it's no use, my boy," he said; "it's no use; you can't fool your Uncle Isaac. You'd better 'ave taken his advice long ago--and been a good boy."
"That's all right," said Archie, a strange calm having come to him because of the change in the world, "but who put you wise?"
Kouka looked at Quinn and smiled, and then he said to Archie:
"Oh, what you don't know won't hurt you."
Then he had Archie taken back to the prison, but before they locked him up Kouka gave him a box of cigarettes he had taken from a prostitute whom he had arrested the night before, and he left Archie leaning against the door of the prison smoking one of the cigarettes.
"What have they been doing to you?" asked a prisoner.
"The third degree," said Archie laconically.
The knowledge which Kouka preferred to shroud in mystery had been obtained in a simple way. Glancing over the records in the detective's office, he had by chance come across an old report of the robbery of a hardware store. Kouka had taken the revolver found on Archie to the merchant, and the merchant had identified it. That evening Marriott read in the newspapers conspicuous accounts of the brilliant work of Detective Kouka in solving the mystery that had surrounded a desperate burglary. The articles gave Kouka the greatest praise.
VIII