"A typical lager-beer German. Not at all a bad fellow, either."
Dr. Ellis slowly lighted his pipe. "I wonder why Moxton went so regularly to that place?" he said reflectively.
"Well, he might have gone there to make love to one of the ladies who do the turns, but I rather think," said Cass, significantly, "that his object was to gamble. From all his wife says about Monte Carlo and other places the man was a confirmed card-sharper."
"But gambling is not allowed in London."
"No doubt. A good many vices are not allowed in this most immaculate of cities, in this Tartuffe of capitals, but they exist all the same. I don't know for certain, nobody does, but it is rumoured that there is a secret gambling-hell connected with the apparently innocent music-hall of Herr Schwartz's."
Ellis glanced at his watch. "It is getting on for eight o'clock," he remarked. "Let us go to Soho to-night."
"If you like. I have no particular engagement. But your reason?"
"I want to learn all I can about Moxton. If he went there to gamble, Herr Schwartz will know of him. Also we might learn something of Zirknitz. As the book proves, the autograph also, he was a friend of Moxton's, so it is not unlikely he went with him to this secret hell you talk of."
"Very good; let us go at once," said Cass, rising. "But as you and I seem to have become amateur detectives, let us conduct our case with due discretion. There is one piece of evidence we have overlooked."
"What is that?"