“Yet it was from him that they obtained knowledge of these presents?” persisted Ida.
“That, I am sure,” responded the young lady, “was only a matter of accident, as he had been associating with those people, and talked about them.”
“Mr. Ellison an associate of thieves?” asked Ida.
“I am sure he did not know them as thieves,” said Miss Rainforth, “but as gamblers.”
“Gamblers?” inquired Ida.
“Yes,” replied Miss Rainforth. “Gambling is Mr. Ellison’s weakness. It has brought him into great trouble in the past, and I should not be surprised if his present trouble could be traced to it.”
“Explain yourself,” said Ida, believing that she was now on the line of a new discovery.
“Mr. Ellison’s weakness is a love of gambling, and, though his New York friends know little or nothing of that side of him, yet he used to go to Philadelphia frequently to play. There he gambled most heavily, with a certain poker set in that city, of whom this Lannigan was one. He is very heavily in debt to some of that party.”
“Were you present when Mr. Ellison come in and saw these men?”
“Yes.”