When she entered the little cottage, she locked the door on the inside, hurried through the kitchen and into the basement, and entered the tunnel. She went through it quickly, reached the door in the alley wall, listened, opened it, slipped into the alley, and slammed the door shut again. That door could not be opened from the outside unless a person knew exactly how to do it.
Mamie Blanchard hurried through the alley to the street, engaged a taxicab, and drove to a certain hotel, where she ascended in the elevator and went directly to a suite. It was not the same hotel she had visited after telling Sheriff Kowen about the gambling house, but she found the same people there—a middle-aged woman and a middle-aged man.
"Well?" the man asked gruffly.
"Couldn't be better," said Mamie Blanchard.
"What happened?"
"I let him see me, and he took me to his office in the jail. Said he knew that I was a member of the Black Star's band, and threatened to put me in a cell if I didn't tell all I knew. I bluffed him, of course, and then he got the wise idea of letting me go and trailing me. You could almost see it sticking out on his forehead." Miss Blanchard stopped to laugh.
"Go on!" the man commanded.
"The sheriff and a deputy trailed me. When I got near the cottage, I began acting in a peculiar manner. I hurried inside, locked the door, and went out through the tunnel and the alley. At the corner, I saw the sheriff and his deputy still looking at the cottage."
"Well, you did your part!" the man said. "Now we'll wait to learn whether the rest of the plan worked out."
They waited for half an hour. Then the telephone rang, and the man answered. When he hung up the receiver and turned away, he was grinning.