We found The Ship Café, which Brooks had already investigated, on a river-front street in the outskirts of the Greenwich Village section of the city.

"The Ship" was a disreputable-looking frame building, a tavern of several generations ago, once historically famous, but now, like a decayed man about town, relegated to the company of those whom formerly he would have scorned.

Not many months ago it had been a saloon. Now a big sign declared that only soft drinks were sold in it. Even that change did not seem to have done much for the respectability of the place. The neighborhood was still quite as tough and squalid and "The Ship," itself, with a coat of paint, had not become even a whited sepulcher.

Kennedy, Brooks, and myself entered and passed into a typical, low-ceilinged back room of the old days. There at a number of greasy, dirty round tables sat a miscellaneous collection of river-rats, some talking and smoking ill-favored pipes, others [154] reading newspapers. I felt sure that they were drinking something other than soft drinks, and wondered whence the stuff had come. Had it been smuggled in on vessels from the near-by wharves?

We sat down and for some moments Brooks and I did most of the talking, being careful to cover ourselves and pose neither as detectives nor even as newspaper men, lest the slightest slip might excite suspicion among the evil-looking customers of the den.

We had been sitting thus for some time, Kennedy saying very little, when Brooks leaned over toward me and whispered, in reality to Kennedy: "The fellow I discovered—the one they call Number Six—has a room up-stairs. If we could only register here we might get a room—and a chance to search the other rooms."

Kennedy nodded non-committally, but made no effort to put the suggestion into execution, and I saw that he was merely waiting for something to turn up.

For almost an hour we remained talking at the table, endeavoring to ingratiate ourselves with the waiter of the place, a rather burly fellow, who seemed to regard us with suspicion as strangers. Yet, as long as we did nothing or asked nothing indiscreet our burly waiter seemed unable to do anything else than tolerate us.

I was becoming impatient, when a furtive-looking individual entered from what had formerly been the bar. Brooks winked sidewise at us and I [155] gathered that the new-comer was the redoubtable "Number 6," the operative of the Rascon Agency whom Brooks had located.

He cast his furtive eyes around and his glance caught Brooks, who nodded, beckoning him over to the table.

The former operative sidled over and sat down, eying us suspiciously, in spite of Brooks\'s effort to handle him with tact.

We fell into conversation, beginning on the weather and progressing to the usual topic of the evil times into which prohibition was throwing us.

Gradually Brooks led around to more intimate subjects and finally the name of Rascon was mentioned.

At once the former operative flew into a towering rage.

"Say," he ejaculated, "if I should tell you of all the crooked deals that fellow was in—"

He checked himself in spite of his anger, and at once a look of suspicion crossed his face as he glanced doubtfully at us. At least I felt there could be no question that the operative had really double-crossed Rascon. As to whether we might profit by it or not, that was another matter.

"Fair enough," interposed Kennedy, trying to reassure the fellow. "Now we\'re not friends of his exactly. To come right down to brass tacks," he added, lowering his voice, "this gentleman here tells me that you have something to sell. The question is—what do you want and how are you [156] going to deliver the goods—I mean in the way that\'s safest for you, of course."

Kennedy was leaning over frankly toward the fellow. The operative\'s eyes narrowed and a look of low cunning came over his face. He looked about at the other tables, as though not quite sure of even those about him.

"How do I know you come from her?" he shot out. "Maybe you\'re bulls."

Kennedy quickly reassured him. "You can arrange the matter any way that\'s safest to you," he repeated.

I had been so intent on our own little affair that I had not noticed that a couple of new-comers had entered from the side door and were at a table not far from us.

It had not escaped the shifty eyes of our customer. He gave a perceptible start and in an instant was as dumb as an oyster.

Kennedy\'s cold steel eye seemed to bore right into the gaze of our man now as he leaned forward and whispered to him something I did not hear until, as Craig drew back, I could catch the last of it—"And as sure as the Lord made little apples, I\'ll shoot if you don\'t take me up to where you\'ve got the goods. If you do—you get the money."

I glanced about hastily and saw that Kennedy\'s hand was hidden in his pocket, which bulged as if something metallic were held there under cover.

The fellow glanced sullenly from us to the new arrivals, as though in a quandary.
[157]

"You got the money with you?" he asked, rather shakily.

"Yes," Kennedy cut short.

"\'Cause I\'ll have to beat it the back way—and we got to work fast," he explained, his eyes roving from the burly bartender, who had just gone out to the couple at the other table, apparently oblivious to us.

"The faster the better. You can make your get-away with the coin as soon as those reports are in my hands."

"All right," he agreed, nervously, then added to me, "and if you fellows see any one try to follow us—you stop \'em. See?"

I nodded for both myself and Brooks.

"Come on," indicated the former crook detective to Kennedy. "Quick!"

Kennedy rose and followed the fellow to a door to a hallway that looked as if it led up-stairs.

No sooner had the two risen than our strangers at the other table were alert. I swung around in my chair suddenly toward them, and as I did so my hand went to my hip pocket, as though in search of a gun. For just an instant they paused in their attention to Kennedy.

Out of the tail of my eye I caught sight of Kennedy and the operative at the hall door. Framed in the doorway now stood our burly waiter, snarling some remark.

"What do youse want?" growled the waiter.

Before there was a change for a reply a shot rang [158] out from the other side of the room and the place was instantly in Cimmerian darkness as the bullet smashed the one light in the room.

There was a rush and a scuffle. I flung one fellow off, only to be tackled in the blackness by some one else. Swiftly thoughts crowded through my mind as the place was in an uproar.

Had we been followed here? Was it a trap? Was Rascon ready to risk anything rather than to have those reports pass into unfriendly hands?

The moment the light winked out, Kennedy had swung on the burly waiter and had sprung back toward us as we fought our way toward where we had last seen him. I did not know whether my second assailant was one of the two strangers at the other table or not. Over and over we rolled, knocking down tables and chairs, the air torrid with oaths from all sides.

What had become of Kennedy and Brooks I didn\'t know. I am sure that I would have mastered the situation in my own private little fight if, at that moment, there had not been the crash of glass from another door, followed by a shrill cry.

"The bulls!" I heard some harsh voice growl.

It seemed as if new men were coming from all directions. My man squirmed out from my grasp and before I knew it, in the darkness, I found myself in the anomalous position of being held firmly by the collar by a policeman, while all about I could hear the impact of billies on crass skulls, resounding in a manner that was awe-inspiring. My own captor [159] needed only a word to bring his own club down on my head, and, needless to say, I was not going to say that word.

An instant later some one found a wall light and turned it on. In the half-light, I could hear a laugh behind me. I turned.

It was Doyle!

"How did you come here?" I gasped, breathlessly, as Doyle released my collar and I stretched my neck to remove the kinks, in so doing catching sight of Kennedy standing over the unconscious form of the waiter in the doorway as he held the redoubtable No. 6 by the collar.

"Kennedy thought it was a trap—tipped me off," laughed Doyle, swinging his club as he shouted orders to his men to dive into command of each door or window exit.

"Did you locate Rascon?" panted Kennedy, twisting just a bit tighter the collar of the operative whom he was holding.

"Sure," returned Doyle, already beginning to line up his prisoners against a blank wall on one side. "He\'ll be here in a minute. But don\'t wait for him, if that\'s your man. Search the place—and, see here, you," he menaced the former operative, "no monkey-shines. You give Mr. Kennedy them papers—or—" Doyle trailed off in one of his picturesque oaths.

While Doyle\'s men completed the line-up against the wall, Kennedy led the now quaking No. 6 into the hall, followed by Doyle, Brooks, and myself.
[160]

We mounted the stairs, looking into every closet and cranny. Hundreds of cases of "wet" goods must have been concealed in the place, which later we discovered was more than a "speak-easy," for it proved to be a veritable moonshine still almost in the heart of the city.

Our search was not long. The stress of threat and circumstance broke down the former crook detective, who now was as keen to clear himself, gratis, and hang something on Rascon, as before he had been to collect his graft and get away with it.

Directed by him, in a hall bedroom, under the worn carpet, we loosened a board of the floor and took from the lath and plaster of the ceiling below a flat packet done up in oiled silk.

At last we had the purloined Rascon letters.

Doyle\'s eyes widened at the sight of what Craig had uncovered. Here was a whole set of reports such as that which we had already obtained, only of far greater value.

Kennedy was immersed in reading them already.

"What\'s in them?" asked Doyle, reaching eagerly for the sheaf of precious tissue-paper carbon copies.

Kennedy did not stop reading, but merely motioned to be let alone, as, quickly, he ran his eye over one after another.

"Honora had evidently been trailed all over the city," he commented, as he read.

It was a few moments later that Kennedy\'s eyes narrowed as he reached another of the reports.
[161]

"Here\'s one t............