"I've told you
everything you asked, an' I don't savvy what you're gettin' at,
anyway. If you're tryin' to mix Jimmy Brunell up in any new case
you're dead wrong; he's out of the game for good. As for Charley, he
wouldn't know enough to pick up a pocket-book if he saw one lyin' on
the sidewalk, unless he was told to!"

"Well, I may as well warn both of you that you're watched, and if you
try to make a get-away, you'll be taken up--and it won't be on
suspicion, either. Play fair with Blaine, and he'll be square with
you, but don't try to put anything over on him, or it'll be the worse
for you. It can't be done."

Morrow closed the door behind him, leaving the couple as they had been
almost throughout the interview--the woman erect and stony of face,
the man miserable and shaken, crouched dejectedly over the table. But
scarcely had he descended the steps of the ramshackle little porch
when the voice of Mame Pennold reached him, pitched in a shrill key of
emotional exultation.

"Oh, Wally, Wally! Thank God you ain't a snitcher! Thank God you
didn't tell!"

The voice ceased suddenly, as if a hand had been laid across her lips,
and after a moment's hesitation, Morrow swung off down the path,
conscious of at least one pair of eyes watching him from behind the
soiled curtains of the front room.

What had the woman meant? Pennold obviously had kept something back,
but was it of sufficient importance to warrant his returning and
forcing a confession? Whether it concerned Brunell or their nephew
Charley mattered little, at the moment. He had achieved the object of
his visit; he knew that Pennold himself had no connection with the
Lawton forgeries, nor knowledge of them, and at the same time he had
learned of Charley's affiliation with Paddington. The couple back
there in the little house could tell him scarcely more which would aid
him in his investigation, but the dapper, viciously weak young
stool-pigeon, if he could be located at once, might be made to
disclose enough to place Paddington definitely within the grasp of the
law.

Guy Morrow boarded a Sand Street car, and behind the sporting page of
a newspaper he kept a sharp look-out for Lafferty's saloon. He came to
it at last--a dingy, down-at-heel resort, with much faded gilt-work
over the door, and fly-specked posters of the latest social function
of the district's political club showing dimly behind its unwashed
windows.

He rode a block beyond--then, alighting,