I nodded.
“Well, that’s where you and I come in. He wants us to work together. And he wants us to be regular lounge lizards, worming our way into all sorts of social circles, fast, slow and medium. His idea is that sooner or later we’ll run across something in the nature of a clew. And when that happens we’re to follow it up like grim death.”
“Seems pretty vague stuff to work on,” I observed.
“It is and it isn’t. As far as the girls are concerned, we haven’t anything very definite to go on until after the event—and then it’s too late, for they will have covered up their tracks, in their skillful way. But it’s different with the drug business. For there there ought to be something to work on, if we’re smart enough to see it. And if the Chief is right about it being the same gang, why that helps us with the other affair, do you see!”
“If he is right!” I said.
“Well, I think he is. Anyhow it seems reasonable and it’s about all we have got. But here’s another thing. We had a talk yesterday before you turned up, and the Chief agreed with me that it might be better for us not to know each other. I mean, of course, we may meet casually, but it’s highly probable that they have their suspicions about me as it is, and it’s no use dragging you down with me. For if we’re pretty thick, they’ll suspect you too if they suspect me. That business in your rooms that night looked bad, for I haven’t any other enemies that I can think of.”
“But look here,” I told him, “we’ll have to work together to some extent—compare notes and all that—and besides, I’m quite ready to stand in with you on the risk and that sort of thing.”
Moore shook his head and smiled. “Spoken like a pal,” he said. “But this is a business proposition, Clayton, and a tough one. And if we don’t work together, why that leaves you all the freer to step in and haul me out, if I get in a tight corner, don’t you see?”
I didn’t like it very much, but there was no point in arguing about it just then. He knew more about the game than I did, anyway. And I found out very soon how wise his decision had been.
“Then,” he went on, “although we’re not connected in any way in the public eye, we’ve got to fix up some method of getting in touch with each other at any time, on the instant and privately. Now this is what I doped out to that end. I thought I’d take a room or rooms somewhere near you. Perhaps I might take one in the same building, anyway in the same block, so that we had no street between. Then, with the aid of that young Irishman of yours, we ought to be able to lay a private wire between your room and mine. What do you think of it?”