“You include our nice girls—­from what we used to call Middleville’s best families?”

“I don’t only include them.  I throw the emphasis on them.  The girls you know best.”

Lane straightened up, to look at his companion.  Pepper certainly was not drunk.

“Do you know—­anything about Lorna?”

“Nothing specifically to prove anything.  She’s in the thick of this thing in Middleville.  Only a few nights ago I saw her at a roadhouse, out on the State Road, with a crowd of youngsters.  They were having a high old time, I’ll say.  They danced jazz, and I saw Lorna drink lemonade into which liquor had been poured from a hip-pocket flask.”

Lane put his head on his hands, as if to rest it, or still the throbbing there.

“Who took Lorna to this place?” he asked, presently, breathing heavily.

“I don’t know.  But it was Dick Swann who poured the drink out of the flask.  Between you and me, Lane, that young millionaire is going a pace hereabouts.  Listen,” he went on, lowering his voice, and glancing round to see there was no one to overhear him, “there’s a gambling club in Middleville.  I go there.  My rooms are in the same building.  I’ve made a peep-hole through the attic floor next to my room.  Do I see more things than cards and bottles?  Do I!  If the fathers of Middleville could see what I’ve seen they’d go out to the asylum....  I’m not supposed to know it’s more than a place to gamble.  And nobody knows I know.  Dick Swann and Hardy Mackay are at the head of this club.  Swann is the genius and the support of it.  He’s rich, and a high roller if I ever saw one....  Among themselves these young gentlemen call it the Strong Arm Club.  Study over that, Lane.  Do you get it?  I know you do, and that saves me talking until I see red.”

“Pepper, have you seen my sister—­there?” queried Lane, tensely.

“Yes.”

“With whom?”

“I’ll not say, Lane.  There’s no need for that.  I’ll give you a key to my rooms, and you can go there—­in the afternoons—­and paste yourself to my peep-hole, and watch....  Honest to God, I believe it means bloodshed.  But I can’t help that.  Something must be done.  I’m not much good, but I can see that.”

Colonel Pepper wiped his moist face.  He was now quite pale and his hands shook.

“I never had a wife, or a sweetheart,” he went on.  “But once I had a little sister.  Thank Heaven she didn’t live her girlhood in times like these.”

Lane again bowed his head on his hands, and wrestled with the might of reality.

“I’m going to take you to these club-rooms to-night,” went on Pepper.  “It’ll cause a hell of a row.  But once you get in, there’ll be no help for them.  Swann and his chums will have to stand for it.”

“Did you ever take an outsider in?” asked Lane.

“Several times.  Traveling men I met here.  Good fellows that liked a game of cards.  Swann made no kick at that.  He’s keen to gamble.  And when he’s drinking the sky’s the limit.”