"Nasty mess for him," agreed Dennison, pursing up his thick lips. "Terrible kick up, that's a fact. Glad I'm not in it." He smoked for a moment or two and then proceeded. "What was on Tom's mind most of all that night was the condition of his pocketbook. According to his statement it was pretty flat. He'd come into Danforth's with about fifty dollars—all he had—hoping for a little luck at the wheel; but even that slipped away from him."
"Did he have anything in mind, do you know, that would get him out of his difficulties?"
"I suggested that he try his son once more," said Dennison. "But he didn't seem to take kindly to the notion. After a while he began to hint at some little matter—I couldn't quite get its nature." Ashton-Kirk's eyes narrowed as Dennison proceeded: "And he seemed to have some confidence in its turning out well."
"You say you couldn't quite get its nature." Ashton-Kirk was still regarding the man steadily. "Am I to take from that that you did understand a part of it?"
Dennison stirred uneasily.
"Why, yes," he replied. "I think I did. As I said a while ago, I've always believed him to be a sport who was strictly on the level—though I'll admit there are a lot of men I know who think just the other way around. But, though I do believe it, I'll agree, as I said before, he'd been a little different and had mixed with a queer lot of characters. Well, from what he dropped, the matter he had in hand that night had one of these people somewhere in the background."
"You got no details?"
"Not any. Part of the time he talked at me—not to me, at all. He was regretting certain things; how he'd given up opportunities of profit so as to hold a place for himself in the society he moved in. He argued that if a man could bet on the turn of a card, or a wheel, in a place like Danforth's—which is an illegal establishment—why could he not do certain other things, which were also merely illegal, without losing caste. He had a habit of arguing this way when he was broke; but I never took him quite seriously. As a matter of fact, I never was sure as to what he meant; once or twice I asked, but he always turned the matter off, and began to talk about something else.
"He was always close about details or confidences in things like that," proceeded Dennison. "I've sometimes thought this reticence is what made the talk about him. But he was very angry that night; he stormed up and down," and here Dennison gestured with his cigarette, with the manner of one who is determined to hold back nothing. "And he did drop something, after a little, something, I'll admit, that made me wonder what was up."
"Have you any objections to telling what that was?" asked Ashton-Kirk, smoothly.