it was love, the greatest thing in all the world, the
love and faith sublime of a good, true woman. Woman had he said?--an
angel!

XLIV

As Farrell had suggested, Crane sought him at the office the next day at
ten o'clock.

Farrell and his clerk were busy planning an enterprising campaign
against men who had faith in fast horses for the coming week at
Sheepshead Bay.

"Ah!" the Bookmaker exclaimed when Crane entered, "you want that
badge number. Hagen, get the betting sheet for the second last day at
Gravesend, and look up a bet of one thousand dollars we roped in over
Mr. Crane's horse. I want the number to locate the man that parted--I
wish there'd been more like him."

"Do you mean Billy Cass?" queried the clerk.

"Who the devil's Billy Cass?"

"Why the stiff that played The Dutchman for a thou'."

"You know him?" This query from Farrell.

"I should say! He's a reg'lar. Used to bet in Mullen's book last year
when I penciled for him."

The clerk brought the betting sheet and ran his finger down a long row
of figures.

"That's the bet. A thousand calls three on The Dutchman. His badge
number was 11,785. Yes, that's the bet; I remember Billy Cass takin' it.
You see," he continued, explanatory of his vivid memory, "he's gen'rally
a piker--plays a long shot--an' his limit's twenty dollars; so, when he
comes next a favorite that day with a cool thou' it give me stoppage
of the heart. Damn'd if I didn't get cold feet. Bet yer life it wasn't
Billy's money--not a plunk of it; he had worked an angel, an' was
playin' the farmer's stuff for him."

"Are you sure, Mr. Hagen--did you know the man?" Crane asked.

"Know him? All the way--tall, slim, blue eyes, light mustache, hand like
a woman."

"That's the man," affirmed Farrell; "that's the man--I saw him yesterday
in your place."

Crane stared. For once in his life the confusion of an unexpected event
momentarily unsettled him.

"I thought you identified--which man in the bank did you mean?"

"I saw three: a short, dark, hairless kid"--Alan Porter, mentally ticked
off Crane; "a tall, dark, heavy-shouldered chap, that, judged by his
mug, would have made a fair record with the gloves--"

"Was not that the man you identified as having made the bet?"
interrupted Crane, taking a step forward in his intense eagerness.

"Not on your life; it was the slippery-looking cove with fishy eyes."

"Cass," muttered Crane to himself; "but that's impossible--he