"Simply give me the address—and then forget that you have seen and spoken to me. I'll do the rest. You must be very careful, of course, not to let your brother suspect that you have been here. He would inform his friends, and our raid would fail. Every time a raid fails, it hurts us. A certain part of the public, antagonistic politicians and newspapers, you see——"
"I understand, Mr. Kowen. Here is the address—I have written it on a card."
She placed the card before him on the desk. Sheriff Kowen glanced at it.
"Ah!" he exclaimed. "So! I should say it was in the most exclusive section of the city. This is very valuable information, Miss Blanchard, if our investigation bears out your statements. I cannot thank you enough. There will be more to this than a gambling-house raid; the owners of the property must give the court a little explanation, I fear."
"You are sure that I did not do wrong coming here like this?"
"I am sure that you did quite right, my dear young lady. You perhaps have aided us in rounding up sharpers who fleece young men of their fortunes, and perhaps you have saved your brother. He is at the stage, I take it, where a little scare will do him a lot of good. You have done quite right!"
"Then I must hurry away," she said, rising. "And I shall do as you said—forget that I have been here. My brother——"
"I'll watch out for him, Miss Blanchard—a little scare and nothing more! It is the proprietor of the place and his partners we are after, more than the victims."
Sheriff Kowen went as far as the corridor with Miss Blanchard, and then hurried back to his private office and began pushing buttons. He called before him certain of his deputies, gave them the information he had acquired, and certain orders, and sent them away. Then he touched match to cigar, leaned back in his chair, blew a cloud of fragrant smoke toward the ceiling, and chuckled softly. Sheriff Kowen had not had a chance to raid a gambling house of any importance for more than a year; and raiding a gambling house was his pet sport. He promised himself that this raid should be sensational in the extreme. Gambling houses were not going to flourish while Kowen was holding office as sheriff.
As for Miss Blanchard, she drove in a taxicab to an exclusive private hotel, ascended in the elevator to the eighth floor, and entered a suite there.