"I knew the 'Bounder' had gone along without much friction with the police," said the investigator; "but I'll admit that I'm a bit surprised at the completeness of the thing."
A dapper young man who stood at a filing case, going over a thick inset of cards, laughed a little.
"I'll venture to say that there is not a police blotter in any large city in the country that holds the name of Tom Burton," said he. "But there are dozens of other names—poor devils, rounded up in some risky operation of which the 'Bounder' was the instigator."
Ashton-Kirk nodded.
"One might call that 'dogging it,'" said he, "or it might be viewed as exceedingly clever work. It altogether depends upon the point of view. To maintain such an attitude in the background over a long period of time calls for a rigorous self-repression. Burton was evidently a criminal of some parts."
"Well, looking at it from that side, I suppose it's so," said the dapper young man. "But I've been accustomed to seeing Burton and his kind as a sort of dregs, and I was just a little surprised when you began to look him up."
Ashton-Kirk smiled and drew a long draft of smoke from the big pipe.
"It is, very likely, time wasted," he said; "for it's a hundred to one that nothing——"
Here there came a long "blurr-r-r" from the lower part of the house, and the investigator stopped short.
"I rather think," added he, "that I'll reduce the odds. For, unless I am much mistaken, that is Bat Scanlon's touch at the door-bell."