Both the Chief and Moore laughed outright at this. “Well,” said the former, “there’s been a little feeling about that. It seems that they had only gone a block or two when they were overtaken by a motor-cycle cop. He told them that I had sent him with instructions that they were to proceed at once to Coney Island, as the meeting place had been changed. What’s more, they went. They waited awhile, and by the time they suspected that something was wrong and came back, you and I had gone on. We never caught the cop either.”
“I never heard what happened to the other fellows outside that night,” said Moore.
“Oh, they had a pretty warm time. Those fellows that tried to blow us up on the way down came back and reported their failure, and the Emperor stationed them outside the house to wait for us. But of course he thought there were only the three of us. When our men came in touch with them there was a battle-royal, the end of which we saw from the big hall. It’s a good thing that they drove those fellows in, or our men might have been a much longer time getting in to us.”
“What became of Vining?” I asked him presently. “Is he going up for trial soon?”
The Chief stared at me and shook his head slowly. “He’s gone up for trial already,” he said gravely. “One of the fool cops out there in —— told him that we had rounded up the gang and that the head of it was dead. And the next morning they found Vining hanging by his own belt from the bars of his window. We had enough evidence to send him to the chair ten times over anyway. He took the easier way.”
The rest of the general conversation that night was of a more personal nature. The Chief had to leave early and we all trooped out to the elevator to wish him God-speed. He is a great man, and somehow I feel that I am destined, perhaps, to work with him again, before I die, although the thing seems improbable enough. Perhaps what Moore told me that night just before he left may have something to do with my feeling.
I had left the others in the sitting-room, intending to take Natalie and her aunt home later on. I had walked out to the elevator to say good-night to Moore there. But before he rang the bell he turned and faced me, smiling a little.
“Clayton,” he said, “I’ve got a confession to make to you. I knew Margaret quite a while before I knew you!”
“What!—where?” I demanded.
“In town,” he answered. “I met her several times at the house of a school friend of hers with whom she was staying. And, old man, I made up my mind that she was the only girl in the world for me!”