“Then,” and he threw back his head and instantly resumed his usual look of careless indifference, “tell your patron, whoever he may be, that I am his man, for one year, or for twenty!”
CHAPTER V.
“STANHOPE’S FIRST TRICK.”
Van Vernet and Richard Stanhope had been brother detectives during the entire term of their professional career.
Entering the Agency when mere striplings, they had at once formed a friendship that had been strong and lasting. Their very differences of disposition and habits made them the better fellow-workmen, and the role most difficult for one was sure to be found the easier part for the other to play.
They had been a strong combination, and the Chief of the detectives wasted some time in pondering the question: what would be the result, when their skill and courage stood arrayed against each other?
Meantime, Richard Stanhope, wasting no thought upon the matter, hastened from the presence of his Chief to his own quarters.
“It’s my last night,” he muttered, as he inserted his key in the lock, “and I’ll just take one more look at the slums. I don’t want to lose one bird from that flock.”
Half an hour later, there sallied forth from the door where Stanhope had entered, a roughly-dressed, swaggering, villainous-looking fellow, who bore about with him the strongly defined odors of tobacco and bad whiskey.