ation
for Gibson. All that is mere inference, suspicion. And the weakness in
Hatch's story is in the fact that he is a crook himself, although you
and I know that he told us the truth."

"Then we haven't enough yet?" said John.

"I'm afraid not."

"But you said last night that Cummings had made his one big mistake."

"And I wasn't wrong when I said it. We don't have to take Hatch's story
simply as it stands. It's up to us now to get corroboration enough to
make it undeniable."

"How?"

"By finding someone who has seen Gibson visit Cummings' apartment, a
janitor, a neighbor, the clerk at the desk, anyone."

"Suppose no one saw him."

"Then we must find out how they are communicating with each other. We
can tap the telephone in Cummings' apartment and those at Gibson's
office and home if it comes to that."

P. Q. and the "chief" upheld Brennan's judgment that Hatch's story
needed more corroboration than that given by his wife and that the
attack on Gibson, exposing him as a fraud, would have to be postponed
until one more link was added to the chain of evidence against him. It
was decided that Brennan and John should concentrate their endeavors in
an effort to discover the method of communication between Gibson and
the "Gink."

* * * * *

That night John saw Consuello again and realized with a suddenness that
shocked him that he loved her.

The tremendousness of his realization that he was in love with her
frightened him, and yet he was gloriously happy. Exultant joy, a rapture
faintly akin to the ecstasy that had thrilled him the first Christmas
morning he could remember, gave a buoyancy to his brain, his heart, his
soul. He knew that he had loved her from the moment he met her and
regardless of what the future held for them he would go on loving her
forever.

Returning to his desk after the conference in the "chief's" office on
the story told by "Big Jim" Hatch, John found a sheet of copy paper
stuck in the roller of his typewriter. That was the office boy's way of
leaving memoranda of telephone calls for the reporters.

"Call Miss Carrillo at the studio," John read. He went immediately to
the telephone booth.

"There will be a pre-view of the picture, my latest, here tonight and I
thought you might like to see it," she said. "Reggie is so busy
campaigning that he can't be here," she added.

"I would like it," he told her.

"Can you come?"

"Yes, certainly."

"S