"He thinks he can keep on fooling us," scoffed Ferral.
"Listen to me, that's all I ask," pursued Brady, desperately earnest. "Pete and Whipple, helped by a man named Hooligan, got the girl away from her friends in Chicago, and——"
"How did they do it?" interrupted Matt.
"Hooligan met Helen on the street, and told her that her brother, Hector Brady, Jr., was sick and wanted her to come to him at once. Helen knew the police were looking for my son, just as they were for the other members of my gang who had escaped the officers, and she did not dare to go back to her friends and tell them where she was going. Hooligan told her it wouldn't be necessary for her to say anything, as she could get back to Archer Avenue in the afternoon. Hooligan took Helen by train to River Forest, a suburb of Chicago, and not far from La Grange. He's care-taker during the summer for a house in River Forest, Hooligan is, and he took the girl there. The moment the girl reached the house, Whipple and Pete made a prisoner of her, and turned her over to Mrs. Hooligan. When it became night, Helen was taken to a house owned by the Hooligans in La Grange—and Helen has been there ever since. Last night I was in La Grange and I spotted the house, but the gang were too many for me and I didn't dare try to rescue Helen alone. I had already thought of you and the Hawk, King, and I knew we could turn the trick if I could only get you to help."
The facts were surprising—providing they were the facts—and Brady's knowledge of them was equally mystifying.
"How did you learn all this, Brady?" demanded Matt.
"Grove got the news to me while I was in prison. Whipple and Pete tried to ring him in on the deal, but Grove wouldn't stand for it. A pretty decent sort of a grafter, Grove is, but he's done with crooked work and has gone to California to lead a different life. My son, at last accounts, was in New York. By this time he's off for foreign parts. It is due to you, King, that my gang has been scattered like this, and there was a time, not many days ago, when all I asked was to be free just long enough to settle my score with you. But this strange affair of Helen's has changed all that. I'm thinking more of getting even with Whipple and Pete than I am of getting even with you. As for Helen, I can see now that the girl meant well, although what she has done has made a convict of me."
The convict was always a well-spoken man, and plainly a man of education. This, perhaps, had made him a more dangerous criminal than he would otherwise have been.
Somehow, Matt was deeply impressed by his words. The young motorist's desire to help Helen Brady probably influenced him to pay some attention to his prisoner's words.
"You're right in saying this is a strange case, Brady," said Matt. "The strangest part of it is why Whipple and Pete should go to all this trouble. What are they trying to do?"