"The one as was doped, that come in the hack."
"All right."
"That's all," said Talman, and walked off.
The self-constituted detective pondered as he passed down through the dark street. How should he use his information? Hate, gratitude, and the need for money all contended in his breast. He had long harbored a feeling of revenge against McSheen and Raffity and his understrapper, Gallagin. They had deserted him in his hour of need and he had come near being hanged for doing their work. Only his fear of McSheen's power had kept him quiet. The desire for revenge and the feeling of gratitude worked together. But how should he use his knowledge? It behooved him to be prudent. Coll McSheen and Mick Raffity and Mel Gallagin were powerful forces in the world in which he moved. They could land him behind the bars in an hour if they worked together. At last he solved it!
He would go to a man who had always been kind to him and his. Thus it was, that just before light that morning John Marvel was awakened by a knock on his door. A man was below who said a sick person needed his services. When he came down into the street in the dim light of the dawning day, there was a man waiting in the shadow. He did not recognize him at first, but he recalled him as the man told the object of his visit at such an hour, and John was soon wide-awake. Still he could scarcely believe the story he was told.
"Why, she can't be there," he protested. "A friend of mine was there to look for her day before yesterday with the police, and she was not there."
"She is there now, and if you pull the place you'll get her all right," asserted the other.
"I'll go there myself."
"No use goin' by yourself."
"I'll get the police——"