Leslie’s eyes were searching Lanagan’s. He knew of old that Lanagan was not a quibbler and that he never wasted words.
“You’ve got something, Jack. What is it?”
“Him,” said Lanagan inelegantly, tapping the face upon the circular.
Leslie jumped straight up out of his chair. The police reporter lit a fresh cigar from Leslie’s top desk drawer, where the good ones were.
“It’s this way, chief; but the story’s mine, mine absolutely.”
“You’ve brought me the tip, the story’s yours. That’s the way I play the game,” said Leslie.
“This woman was the girl you arrested. Her brother’s out in a rooming house on O’Farrell Street, laid up with consumption—galloping, too, it appears to me.”
Leslie was an explosive man, and after a swift glance through the circular description of the woman again, he expressed himself volubly and with unction. It never occurred to him to question the accuracy of Lanagan’s statements. He would have taken the newspaper man’s word over that of one of his own men.
Lanagan telephoned to Sampson, city editor of the Enquirer, and before that cold-blooded individual could get in a word, Lanagan had said enough to indicate to Sampson that something choice was on the irons. Lanagan had asked for me, and I was detailed to report to him in thirty minutes at Van Ness Avenue and Eddy.
It was just thirty minutes later that the chief, Lanagan, Brady, Wilson, and Maloney—three of Leslie’s steadiest thief takers—and myself were dropping singly into 1153A O’Farrell Street, Lanagan having preceded us to reassure the landlady. Maloney went on through to take the alleyway, the room having a window over the alley. Softly and swiftly we massed before the door. Lanagan took the door, rapping. There was no answer. The chief signaled for a rush.