“Are you game?” she asked.
“The proposition strikes me as being peculiar. Suppose I am Chester Fay. How do I know that you are Charlie Laurie’s daughter?”
“Would this convince you?” The girl reached in her breast and laid a folded photograph on the table. Fay picked it up. It was a good likeness taken in a rogues’ gallery. A tag with a number was about the girl’s neck. Her eyes were straight before her. Beneath the card was the notation:
“Saidee Laurie, _alias_ Saidee Isaacs, _alias_ English Kitty. Shoplifter, gun-moll, con-woman, gay-cat for Continental mobs of safe-blowers and card-sharpers. Sentences, suspended each instance: Auburn, N. Y., Rochester Workhouse, Rochester, N. Y., Bridewell, Chicago, Ill.”
Fay turned the card over, then handed it back.
“Rather convincing,” he said. “Frankly, you don’t look it.”
“Are you going to help me?”
Fay traced circles on the iron table-top. He stared at his golf-bag. He considered the situation from a score of angles. The thing that swayed him and inclined him toward the proposition was the fact that “The Black Cougar” was fair game for any self-respecting crook.
“I make one stipulation,” he said, finally. “Buy out the photograph gallery and establish yourself above the vault. I’ll advance the money.”
“I have the money. I had already figured on that,” was the girl’s reply.