Isabel Ostrander

“ He'd borrow money, if he could, from a man who had insulted his wife and if he couldn't, sell him out! The ex-roundsman's foot tingled to administer a kick to the cowardly sneak, but he must learn more. "If Mrs. Waverly and Mrs. Creveling played just because they were bored and Mrs. Ford because you wanted her to, why did Mrs. Kip and—and Mrs. O'Rourke sit in the game?"
"Oh, Connie Kip is a born adventuress; a professional gambler in a way, like Cutter," replied Ford carelessly. ”

“ Ford followed him to the door. "Creveling got his, although I don't know from what particular motive, of many possible ones that his murderer might have had. Waverly won't last long at the pace he is traveling, but Cutter is the man I want to see shown up; he'd rather be shot, any day, than have that happen, for he's got a certain pride of a sort. I'm dead sorry that you can't hang the murder on him, for thieves fall out, you know, but we'd have to help prove his alibi unless we perjured ourselves and there were the O'Rourkes, anyway. ”

“ Dennis gave a little start. "Oh, I remember! And is 'X' Mrs. Kip?"
"No. 'Tis me," said McCarty modestly. "After I 'phoned you last night to meet me for dinner I stopped at the Bulletin office and put that in; I'd like to see Mrs. Kip's face if she reads it!—But what's the matter with your own? You look as if something had bit you!"
"Mac!" The newspaper shook in Dennis' excited hand. "What was it that you heard Ford say to his wife in the hall yesterday?—That he was 'done for,' wasn't it?" ”

“ It is through her that he gets his clutches on the young asses in society with more money than brains."
"Was she at Cutter's on Thursday evening?" asked McCarty suddenly.
"No, only the O'Rourkes. We expected Creveling but he 'phoned that he couldn't make it so we had a five-handed game; tame enough, too, with neither Creveling nor Waverly there. They were the plungers, and helping along Cutter's fleecing of O'Rourke, I suspect. I might have warned him, I suppose, but I had my own fish to fry in trying to win my money back from them or get a loan, and then misery loves company, you know!" ”

“ Ford to travel with that bunch; I thought I'd get in myself through them with big moneyed interests and I didn't realize I was practically using my own wife as a capper, the way Cutter is using Mrs. Baillie Kip. She's just a kind of a grown-up little girl, my wife is; she loves to spend money and be taken up by the swell people and she never can realize that there might be another motive behind the flattery of other men, rotters like Cutter. ”

“ McCarty responded slyly. "Not being regularly connected with the force any longer, promotion don't bother me and there's nothing to hold me back when I'm in the wrong from saying so, and starting over. I've been thinking that as long as you've got the dragnet out after that Hildreth woman and the stations and ferries and roads watched so that she can't make her getaway from the city, we're bound to land her in time and there's no use in waiting for her to try to get in touch with Hill before we run him in again. ”

“ You fellows at headquarters are mighty smart but you didn't know that the biggest games in the city are pulled off and have been for years in that respectable looking house of his down on the Avenue! He is nothing more nor less than a professional gambler, only he does things on a scale that's never been known before even in the Big Town. ”

“ One of the boys will be at the house with the warrant almost as soon as you are."
But McCarty did not at first turn his steps in the direction of the Creveling house. Instead he took a downtown Third Avenue car and alighted at the scene of the Hildreth woman's escape on the previous night. The stout young operative from the detective bureau who had relieved Yost was seated in the kitchen, where the broken door and smashed flower pots still bore mute evidence of siege and flight. ”

“ Dennis passed over the paper and McCarty read in flaring headlines:
"Failure on Stock Exchange. Lonsdale Ford & Company Go to Wall. Many Small Investors and Speculators Hard Hit in Crash."
Below in smaller type appeared the story in detail, but McCarty merely glanced through it. He was working against time now; against the time when the inspector's dragnet might bring in the girl, Ilsa, or he might tire of waiting and arraign Hill formally before a Magistrate on a murder charge. ”

“ She's too shrewd to jeopardize the social position she has wormed herself into by any indiscreet flirtation, but the cards are her means of a livelihood and I could swear I've caught her cheating more than once though if Cutter knows it he doesn't mind her counting herself in on his graft for she's popular and useful to him as a steerer. ”

“ I'm not a poor loser, but I'm convinced it was crooked and I've been made the sucker. God! Even a {{wg:tinhorn|tin horn}} card sharp will stake you to cigarette money after he's stripped you of your roll!"
"Game?" McCarty repeated, a light beginning to glimmer through his consciousness.
"Of course. I was on my way to being a rich man even in these skyrocketing days, but it's all gone over that green table of Cutter's, damn him!" Ford stopped abruptly and the rage in his face gave way to a look of sly derision. ”