The little group broke up. Constable Foss and one of the strangers remained on the spot, the others vanished up the road. He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the wharf. A long dark object was lying near the edge, while some distance away a small knot of men stood talking. The moon, riding high, cast a cold, sickly light upon the scene.
"I've always been kind of suspicious of him," Foss was saying, his voice lowered. "What did you say his real name is?"
"His real name is Thane, I suppose. I guess there's no doubt about that. Mind you, I'm not sure he's the man we've been looking for these last six months, but I'm pretty sure of it. Last February two men and a woman tried to smuggle a lot of diamonds through the customs at New York. I'll not go into details now further than to say they landed from one of the big ocean liners and came within an ace of getting away with the job. The woman was the leader. She was nabbed with one of the men at a hotel. The other man got away. He was on the passenger list as George Ritchie, of Cleveland, Ohio. The woman had half a dozen photographs of him in her possession. I've got a copy of one of 'em in my pocket now, and it's so much like this fellow Thane that you'd swear it was of the same man. This morning Gilfillan,—that's the Pinkerton man,—telephoned to his chief in Chicago to notify the federal authorities that he was almost dead certain that our man was here. He's a wonder at remembering faces, and he had seen our photographs. Simons and I took the three o'clock train. Gilfillan met us in the city and brought us out after we had instructed the police to be ready to help us in case he got onto us and gave us the slip."
"How much of a reward is offered?" inquired Foss.
"We are not supposed to be rewarded for doing our duty," replied the Secret Service man curtly. "He got away from us and it's our business to catch him again. You can bet he's our man. He wouldn't be hanging around a burg like this for months unless he had a blamed good reason for keeping out of sight."
"He's been in mighty bad health,—and, if anybody should ask you, there ain't a healthier place in the world than right here in—"
"It's healthier than most jails," admitted the other with a chuckle.
"Umph!" grunted Mr. Foss, delivering without words a full and graphic opinion on the subject of humour as it exists in the minds of people who live in large cities. He chewed for a time in silence. "What became of the woman and the other man?"
"Oh, they were sent up,—I don't know for how long. They're old hands. Husband and wife. Steamship gamblers before the war. Fleeced any number of suckers. She must be a peach, judging from the pictures I've seen of her. They probably would have got away with this last job if she and Ritchie hadn't tried to put something over on friend husband. She had the can all ready to tie to him when he got wise and laid for her lover with a gun. The revenue people had been tipped off by agents in Paris and traced the couple to the hotel. They sprung the trap too soon, however, and the second man got away."
"Well, I guess there ain't any question but what this feller here is old Silas Thane's grandson. They say he's the livin' image of old Silas. So he must have sailed under a false name."