do?"

"I want your help to get her out of there, today, before any harm comes
to her."

"What sort of harm?"

Durkin found it hard to put his fears and feelings into satisfactory
words. He was on dangerous seas, but he made his way doggedly on,
between the Charybdis of reticence and the Scylla of plain-spoken
suggestion.

"I see--in other words, you want the police to raid Penfield's downtown
gambling establishment before two o'clock this afternoon, and release
from that establishment a young lady who drove there, and probably not
for the first time, in an open cab in the open daylight, because
certain ties which you do not care to explain bind you to the young
lady in question?"

The brief and brusque finality of tone in the other man warned Durkin
that he had made no headway, and he caught up the other's half-mocking
and tacit challenge.

"For which, I think, this office will be adequately repaid, by being
brought into touch with information which will help out its previous
action against Penfield!"

"Who will give us this?"

Durkin looked at his cross-examiner, nettled and impatient.

"I could!"

"But will you?"

"Yes, on the condition I have implied!"

"In other words, you stand ready to bribe us into a doubtful and
hazardous movement against the strongest gambler in all New York, on
the expectation of an adequate bribe! This office, sir, accepts no
bribes!"

"I would not call it bribery!"

"Then how would you describe it?"

"Oh, I might be tempted to call it--well, cooeperation!"

Some tinge of scorn in his words nettled the officer of the law.

"It all amounts to the same thing, I presume. Now, let me tell you
something. Even though you came to me today with a drayful of crooked
faro layouts and doctored-up roulette wheels from Penfield's house, it
would be practically impossible, at this peculiar juncture of municipal
administration, to take in my men and carry out a raid over Captain
Kuttrell's head!"

"Ah, I see! You regard Penfield as immune!"

"Penfield is _not_ immune!" said the public prosecutor. The
oldish-young face was very flushed and angry by this time. "Don't
misunderstand me. As a recognized and respected citizen, you always
have the right to call on the officers of the law, to secure protection
and punishment of crime. But this must be sought through the natural
and legitimate channels."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean go to the police."

"But to lay