“Perhaps it has,” returned Kennedy.  “Did you see who was in the car?”

“No, but I see it has turned and is coming back.”

“It was Inspector—­I mean, First Deputy O’Connor.  I thought he recognized us as he whizzed along, and I guess he did, too.  Ah, congratulations, O’Connor!  I haven’t had a chance to tell you before how pleased I was to learn you had been appointed first deputy.  It ought to have been commissioner, though,” added Kennedy.

“Congratulations nothing,” rejoined O’Connor.  “Just another new deal—­election coming on, mayor must make a show of getting some reform done, and all that sort of thing.  So he began with the Police Department, and here I am, first deputy.  But, say, Kennedy,” he added, dropping his voice, “I’ve a little job on my mind that I’d like to pull off in about as spectacular a fashion as I—­as you know how.  I want to make good, conspicuously good, at the start—­understand?  Maybe I’ll be ‘broke’ for it and sent to pounding the pavements of Dismissalville, but I don’t care, I’ll take a chance.  On the level, Kennedy, it’s a big thing, and it ought to be done.  Will you help me put it across?”

“What is it?” asked Kennedy with a twinkle in his eye at O’Connor’s estimate of the security of his tenure of office.

O’Connor drew us away from the automobile toward the stone parapet overlooking the railroad and river far below, and out of earshot of the department chauffeur.  “I want to pull off a successful raid on the Vesper Club,” he whispered earnestly, scanning our faces.

“Good heavens, man,” I ejaculated, “don’t you know that Senator Danfield is interested in—­”

“Jameson,” interrupted O’Connor reproachfully, “I said ‘on the level’ a few moments ago, and I meant it.  Senator Danfield be—­well, anyhow, if I don’t do it the district attorney will, with the aid of the Dowling law, and I am going to beat him to it, that’s all.  There’s too much money being lost at the Vesper Club, anyhow.  It won’t hurt Danfield to be taught a lesson not to run such a phony game.  I may like to put up a quiet bet myself on the ponies now and then—­I won’t say I don’t, but this thing of Danfield’s has got beyond all reason.  It’s the crookedest gambling joint in the city, at least judging by the stories they tell of losses there.  And so beastly aristocratic, too.  Read that.”

O’Connor shoved a letter into Kennedy’s hand, a dainty perfumed and monogramed little missive addressed in a feminine hand.  It was such a letter as comes by the thousand to the police in the course of a year, though seldom from ladies of the smart set: 

* * * * *