ally by the condemning information against Gibson which
had been given them by "Big Jim," John was startled by Brennan's first
words after Hatch had stopped speaking.

"What a fat-head I am!" Brennan exclaimed.

Hatch's face showed that he shared John's surprise at Brennan's
ejaculation.

"Oh, what a sap I am!" he continued. "Why, oh, why haven't we shadowed
them? Why haven't we followed them night and day until we found them
together? Why didn't one of us spot the 'Gink's' apartment?"

"You're lucky you haven't," Hatch put in. "You couldn't have gotten away
with it. They probably would have killed you. Anyway, I doubt very much
if they actually meet each other now. The 'Gink' warned Gibson when I
saw them that he was not to 'do this again,' which meant he shouldn't
come to the apartment."

"They're in communication with each other, somehow," said Brennan.

"There's the telephone, or they may be using the mails, or they may have
a confidential agent, a go-between," Hatch suggested.

"I don't think the 'Gink' would take a chance with a go-between," said
Brennan.

Before they left him to hurry back to the office, Hatch agreed to make
an affidavit containing what he had told them, including the portion of
the story told by his wife, and had consented to allow them to obtain a
sworn statement from Mrs. Hatch.

"There's only one thing wrong with what we got from 'Big Jim,'" Brennan
said as they left the jail, "and that is that it comes from a man facing
a term in the penitentiary. It's difficult for people to believe a
confessed swindler like Hatch, although he's telling the truth. Even his
wife's story would be received skeptically simply because she is his
wife. Gibson has such a hold on the city, such a reputation for honesty
and integrity, such influential support, that his mere denial of what
Hatch says would be believed implicitly."

"But consider Hatch's story along with the framed-up Spring street raid
and the information we have of how Cummings opened and closed the town
to convince the people that Gibson is the only man who can stop crime,"
John argued.

"We must look at it from the reader's viewpoint," said Brennan. "It's
the reader whom we have to convince. He wants facts, plain, hard facts.
We have nothing to actually show that Cummings framed the Spring street
raid in collusion with Gibson. We have nothing to actually show that the
opening and closing of the city by Cummings was to build up a reput