"She said so, Patsy, and I take it for what I think it was worth," said Nick. "I declined an invitation to enter, but I promised to call within a day or two and plan another job with her. I will have learned more about her and her recent doings by that time."
"But what’s your game, Nick?" Chick repeated. "What do you expect to gain by it?"
"For one thing, Chick, I expect to get Gaston Goulard—before he can contrive to get me," Nick replied, more seriously. "That rat meant what he said last night. I could read it in his evil eyes and detect it in his voice. He would have shot me in cold blood through that grille door, if fear of detection and capture had not restrained him."
"He certainly is capable of it, Nick, as far as that goes," Chick readily allowed. "We want him badly enough for the murder of Batty Lang, but I don’t see just how your bargain with Sadie Badger will enable you to get him."
"It will help," Nick said confidently. "Crooks flock together as naturally as blackbirds. Both Goulard and Sadie Badger, despite that she said last night that she now has no pal on whom she would bank, are in touch with the worst elements of the New York underworld. Through her and the subterfuge I have adopted, I intend to locate some of them, at least, and discover the whereabouts of Gaston Goulard."
"Ah, I see."
"It is not easy for either of us to worm our way into the confidence of a crook, particularly if he is an old-timer," Nick added. "We and our tricks are too well known. They fight shy of us. This was too good an opportunity to lose, therefore, and I resolved to take advantage of it."
"That’s the stuff, chief," said Patsy. "It’s bound to cut ice of some thickness."
"I think so, Patsy, and that it will enable me to finally run down Goulard," said Nick, rising to go to his business office. "I will call on Sadie Badger either to-night or to-morrow, disguised as I was last night, and find out just how the land lies. I can take her in at will, you know, as far as that goes."[Pg 13]
"Like breaking sticks," said Patsy. "You’re in right, chief, to pull off a big stunt of some kind. My money goes on that."