fe, both for my own
safety and as the best means of keeping a watch on that man, I knew that
I must win the confidence of the underworld, that I must have help, and
that in order to obtain that help I must have some excuse for my enmity
against the man known as Henry LaSalle. To be widely known in the
underworld was of inestimable value--nothing, I knew, could accomplish
that as quickly as eccentricity. You see now how and why I became
known as Silver Mag. I gained the confidence of every crook in New
York through their wives and children. I told them the story of my jail
sentence--while I swore vengeance on Henry LaSalle. I told them that he
had had me arrested for something I never stole while I was working for
him as a charwoman, and that he had had me railroaded to jail. There
wasn't one but gave me credit for the theft, perhaps; but equally,
there wasn't one but understood, and my eccentricity helped this out,
my wanting to 'get' Henry LaSalle. Well--do you see now, Jimmie? I had
money, I had the confidence of the underworld, I had an excuse for my
hatred of Henry LaSalle, and so I had all the help I wanted. Day and
night that man has been watched. He receives no visitors--what social
life he has is, as you know, at the club. There is not a house that he
has ever entered that, sooner or later, I have not entered after him
in the hope of finding the headquarters of the clique. Even the men
and women, as far as human possibility could accomplish it, that he
has talked to on the streets have been shadowed, and their identity
satisfactorily established--and the net result has been failure; utter,
absolute, complete failure!"

Jimmie Dale's eyes, that had held steadily on her face, shifted,
troubled and perplexed, to the table top.

"You are wonderful!" he said, under his breath. "Wonderful! And--and
that makes it all the more amazing, all the more incomprehensible. It is
still impossible that he has not been in close and constant touch with
his accomplices. He MUST have been! We would be blind fools to argue
against it! It could not, on the face of it, have been otherwise!"

"Then how, when, where has he done it?" she asked wearily.

"God knows!" he said bitterly. "And if they have been clever enough to
escape you all these years, I'm almost inclined to say what you said a
little while ago--that we're beaten."

She watched him miserably, as he pushed back his chair impulsively and,
standing up, stared down at her.