“What's this?” asked Lanson, in surprise. “Phony!” said MacVightie laconically. “Counterfeit!” Lanson turned the note over in his hands, staring at first one side and then the other. “Are you sure? I'd take it any time.”
“You'd have lots of company with you”—there was a sudden rasp in the detective's voice. “Pretty good one, isn't it? The East is being flooded with them. Two of them showed up in the banks here in the city yesterday, and one to-day.”
Lanson frowned perplexedly.
“I don't get you, MacVightie,” he said.
“Suppose they were being struck off around here,” suggested MacVightie curtly. “I don't say they are, but suppose it were so. They'd likely be shoved out as far away from this locality as possible, wouldn't they—back East, say. They're so good that a jag of them got by before they began to be detected—and now suppose we assume that they're beginning to sift back around the country.”
“Well?”
“Well”—MacVightie caught the superintendent up quickly—“I didn't say I could prove it; but, coupled with the fact that I happen to know that the police have traced the work back to somewhere west of Chicago, I've got a hunch that the gang that is operating around here and the crowd that is turning out the phony money is the same outfit. The Lord knows”—he smiled bitterly—“they're clever enough! And to go back to those messages now. If there was anything in them at all, anything more than some irresponsible idiot tampering with a key somewhere, we were face to face, not with a mere gang of train robbers, but with an organised criminal league as dangerous and powerful as has ever existed in this country—and that's what made me hesitate. We couldn't afford to take any chances, to start out after a mare's nest, and we had to make as nearly sure of our ground as possible before we played a card. We went on the principle that if it was only somebody playing the goat, he'd get tired of it before long if no one paid any attention to him; if it meant anything more than that, he'd keep on.” MacVightie's pugnacious face screwed up into a savage grimace. “Well, maybe this counterfeiting idea has had something to do with deciding me, but, anyway, I'm satisfied now. He has kept on. And I'm satisfied now that those messages are a cipher code that the gang is using, and that our cat-and-mouse play, as you call it, instead of being abortive, is exactly what's going to land our men for us. That's one thing I came to tell you to-night—that I'm ready now to take the gloves off on this wire game.”
Lanson smashed his fist down on the table top. “Good!” he exclaimed grimly. “I'd like to make things hot for somebody, and it'll at least be easy enough to catch whoever is using the wire.” MacVightie shook his head.
“Oh, no; it won't!” he said evenly. “I didn't mean to give you that impression, and don't you make the mistake of under-estimating the brains we're up against, Lanson. I'm no expert on telegraphy, that's your end of it, but I know they wouldn't sit in on any game where they didn't hold trumps up their sleeves. Get me? Now let's see what it looks like. As I understand it, these messages, no matter from what point on the division they are sent, would be heard on every sounder on the line—that's right, isn't it?”
“Yes—sure! Of course!” agreed Lanson.