“I do yet,” Clarke insisted eagerly. “What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing in particular,” said the other idly, “but I came downtown on the subway and saw Jerome Dangerfield with his two strong-arm men. What’s he afraid of? And why won’t he have publicity?”
“That swinehound!” Clarke exclaimed. “Why wouldn’t he be afraid of publicity with his record? You’re too young to remember, but I know.”
“What do you know?” Trent demanded.
“I know that he’s worse than the Leader said he was when I was on the staff twenty years back. That was why the old Leader went out of business. He put it out. A paper is a business institution and won’t antagonize a vicious two-handed fighter like Dangerfield unless it’s necessary. That’s why they leave him alone. The big political parties get campaign contributions from him. Why stir him up?”
“But you haven’t told me what he did?”
“Women,” said Clarke briefly. “You know, boy, that some men are born women-hunters. That may be natural enough; but if it’s a game, play it fair. Pay for your folly. He didn’t. You ask me why he has those guards with him? It’s to protect him from the fathers of young girls who’ve sworn to get him. His bosom pal got his at a roof garden a dozen years back, and Dangerfield’s watching night and day. He’s bad all through. The stuff we had on him at the Leader would make you think you were back in decadent Rome.”
“What’s his wife like?”
“Society—all Society. Handsome, they tell me, and not any too much brain, but domineering. Full of precious stones. I’m told every servant is a detective. I guess they are, as you never heard of any of their valuables being taken. It makes me thirsty to think of it.”
Trent, when he had obtained the information he desired, left Clarke with enough money to buy medicine for his wife. With the bartender he left sufficient to pay for a taxi to the boarding-house of Mrs. Sauer, where he himself had once resided. Clarke would need it.