Cad Metti, The Female Detective Strategist Part 9

The man who had asked "Who is he?" was thoughtful a moment and then said:

"Our danger may be greater than you imagine."

"Nonsense!"

"I say yes."

"How?"

"Are you dead certain that man Woodford Dunne is not in this club to shadow _you_?"

The man addressed turned pale--very pale.

"How long have you known him as a member?"

"I am certain he has been a member for a number of months."

"It's all very strange. I tell you we have made no mistake. That man was listening at the door of Wadleigh, and it is Mrs. Wadleigh that we expect to employ. He came from Wadleigh's rooms, where he had been peeping, to this clubhouse."

The men were talking in very low tones. Oscar had sneaked in and had not been observed by them, so intensely were they engrossed in their talk.

He had dropped into a seat near them and had picked up a paper.

"How do you know he was listening at Wadleigh's keyhole?"

"You know our orders. Having agreed to employ Mrs. Wadleigh, the governor gave us orders to shadow Wadleigh. We have been on his track. I was going to take a peep and a listen, and silently ascended the stairs when I saw I had been antic.i.p.ated. I slipped back to the street and we lay around. That man who you say is Dunne came from the house and we followed him here."

"He may have come from some other part of the house."

"I would like to think so, but I know better. He lay around after he left the house for Wadleigh to come forth, but we managed to give Wadleigh a tip and he stayed in his rooms. There is no mistake; the man Woodford Dunne was the man we saw dodging at Wadleigh's keyhole. What his real lay was I don't know, and we might a.s.sume it was an off play but for the fact that he came here. _You_ are here. Is he not on your shadow? That's what I want to know."

"This is very serious."

"Yes, it is."

"We must go into this man Dunne."

"We must."

"And if your suspicions are correct the flag of the clubhouse must soon float at half mast for a dead member. We cannot afford to be tripped up now."

"That is true."

At this moment one of the men for the first time observed the presence of our hero. They had no reason to suspect that the man reading the paper understood the subject matter of their discourse and again, they did not realize how distinctly in their engrossment they had spoken. The presence of the club member did not give them much concern, but they changed their theme.

Oscar still maintained his position, and strange thoughts were running through his mind. He had obtained the information that many supposedly reputable men were in the great steal, and here he had evidence that a member of a very respectable social club was possibly in the great organization. It was not a startling discovery in one sense, for the police records will show that many a man who lived a reputable life before the great public for many years has been in the end discovered to be a cool, calculating rogue in alliance with criminals. Even while we write this statement one of these disclosures has been made to a startled public. Accident unmasked a millionaire, a man who has posed before the public for twenty years, and this accidental discovery led to the positive proof that this same man has been a systematic criminal for years; and even after having acquired a million he continued his evil criminal game until exposure came, as it is always sure to come and overtake the guilty sooner or later.

The men left the cafe. Oscar had a good lead and he knew he must go very slowly, as he had some very keen men to deal with. Again he went to a private room and worked back to Mr. Woodford Dunne. He had played his little game around the men and determined to let them play moth around his light.

A little later he left the clubhouse. He had determined to give the men a chance. Instead of being a shadower he learned that he was being "shadowed." He had been there before. He could stand a shadow as well as he could shadow others. He determined to give the men a fair show, a better show than he usually got when playing the same game. He went to a well-known gambling place. There was not a resort in New York City that our hero could not locate, and in every one of these resorts, under one guise or another, he had an _entree_. In some places he was known under one character, and in others under a very different guise. He had laid out all this piping for as many different emergencies. Having become a detective, he made the methods of his profession an exact science. Oscar had not been long in the gambling den when his original suspicions were all fully confirmed. The two men who had shadowed him to the club entered, and our hero mentally argued:

"Those fellows certainly stick to my ident.i.ty."

The detective engaged in the game. He was not a gambler--he abhorred gambling. He had seen so many men drop down to poverty who had taken their first step back in a gambling den, and during the course of his career he had warned, and in some instances saved young clerks who were just beginning to slide downward. Gambling is a fatal amus.e.m.e.nt and sooner or later leads to disaster. Oscar, however, knew how to gamble.

He had learned the various games merely as aids in his profession, for most criminals are inveterate gamblers, and it is in gambling dens where detectives find their richest fields for "dead shadows."

A few moments after Oscar had gotten into the game one of the men who were shadowing him also got in. It proved to be a very commonplace play.

No large bets were made, no great sums were lost or won. The shadower had managed to crowd in beside our hero, and Oscar had favored him in securing the seat, and as was expected the man opened a conversation.

"A slow game," he said.

"Very," answered our hero laconically.

"I don't like this faro anyhow," said the man.

"It pa.s.ses time."

"I prefer a good game of draw."

Oscar detected that the man was just playing a good game of _draw_--he was trying to _draw_ our hero into a private little game of draw-poker; but it was not the poker that he wanted to inaugurate. His game was to draw our hero to some convenient place where he could play a still more significant game of _draw_.

"I like a game of draw myself," said Oscar, nowise loath to favor the man's game.

The detective did not know where it was all leading to, or what it was leading up to as a final denouement, but he was inured to the taking of desperate chances. Peril was a pastime to him. He was ever watchful and always prepared for danger.

"I think I've seen you before," said the man.

"Where?"

"I can't recall; possibly in some club."

Our hero had detected that he was dealing with a very smart man--a man of nerve and coolness--a man who went slow but sure. He also discerned that it was to be a play of skill and experience in roguery against experience and skill in detective work.

"Let's take a little of their whisky," said the man. "It's about all we can get out of this game."

Oscar, having set out to be led, rose from the table, cashed in his checks, as his whilom friend did, and followed to the sideboard where they were joined by the second man, and number one said:

"My friend Thatford. I don't know your name, sir."

"Woodford Dunne," answered our hero promptly.

"Yes, I've heard the name. I reckon you are acquainted with some friend of mine, for I've certainly heard the name."

The men had poured out their drink, when number one, who had announced his own name as Girard, said:

"That's mighty poor whisky. It's like the game--bad."

Thatford said: