you can succeed where we
have all failed. You can command me for all the money you need; and now
get in and run down these rogues."

"You have no photographs?"

"No."

"You say there are women in with the gang?"

"Yes."

"Here in New York?"

"Yes."

"Are the women shoving the queer?"

"If they do they do it so well we cannot trace them; but there are women
in the gang."

"Have they a workshop here?"

"I do not think they have. I believe the workshop is in some remote
place, possibly in Mexican territory; but the leaders are here, and it
is necessary to trail down the leaders and get the evidence against
them. If we get the leaders we can knock out the whole gang. My men have
located members of the gang, and we can close in on them any time, but
none of them will squeal as long as the leaders go free. But once let us
secure the leaders and there will follow a wholesale squeal, and we can
break up the gang."

"All right, I am in with you. I will see Cad Metti and talk the matter
over with you later on."

"I should like to meet your female pal."

During the time Wise, the great special, had been talking to Dunne a
district messenger lad had been standing near munching on a cracker
which he had taken from the free lunch table, and at the proper moment
he stepped forward and handed our hero a note.

The latter glanced at the missive and said:

"All right, lad; there is no answer."

The boy stood around and finally Dunne handed him a nickel. The boy
laughed, said "thank you," and walked away, and Dunne said:

"You have never seen Cad Metti?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Why, certainly, I'd know if I had ever seen her."

"You would?"

"Yes."

"Wise, your memory fails you."

"I've never been accused of loss of memory."

"You never have?"

"No."

"And yet you've seen Cad Metti."

"Never."

"You are sure."

"Certainly."

"You saw her once talking to me."

"Never."

"Come, come, I'll bet you a cigar."

"No use to bet; I tell you I've never seen the girl."

"Then bet."

"All right, I'll bet."

"And you've never seen her?"

"Never."

"But you did see her once, and as an old detective with his eyes always
peeping I supposed you recognized her."

"I reckon I would have recognized her if I had ever seen her. You have
some other officer in your mind whom you confound with me."

"No, you once saw her with me. She was under cover, but of course you
would fall to that."

"But I