“What is this service?” Tavernake asked.

Pritchard for the moment evaded the point.

“I dare say you can understand, Mr. Tavernake,” he said, “that in my profession one has to sometimes go a long way round to get a man or a woman just where you want them.  Now we merely glanced at that table as we came in, and I can tell you this for gospel truth—­there isn’t one of that crowd that I couldn’t, if I liked, haul back to New York on some charge or another.  You wonder why I don’t do it.  I’ll tell you.  It’s because I am waiting —­ waiting until I can bring home something more serious, something that will keep them out of the way for just as long as possible.  Do you follow me, Mr. Tavernake?”

“I suppose I do,” Tavernake answered, doubtfully.  “You are only talking of the men, of course?”

Pritchard smiled.

“My young friend,” he agreed, “I am only talking of the men.  At the same time, I guess I’m not betraying any confidence, or telling you anything that Mrs. Wenham Gardner doesn’t know herself, when I say that she’s doing her best to qualify for a similar position.”

“You mean that she is doing something against the law!” Tavernake exclaimed, indignantly.  “I don’t believe it for a moment.  If she is associating with these people, it’s because she doesn’t know who they are.”

Pritchard flicked the ash from his cigar.

“Well,” he said, “every man has a right to his own opinions, and for my part I like to hear any one stick up for his friends.  It makes no odds to me.  However, here are a few facts I am going to bring before you.  Four months ago, one of the turns at a vaudeville show down Broadway consisted of a performance by a Professor Franklin and his two daughters, Elizabeth and Beatrice.  The professor hypnotized, told fortunes, felt heads, and the usual rigmarole.  Beatrice sang, Elizabeth danced.

People came to see the show, not because it was any good but because the girls, even in New York, were beautiful.”

“A music-hall in New York!” Tavernake muttered.

The detective nodded.

“Among the young bloods of the city,” he continued, “were two brothers, as much alike as twins, although they aren’t twins, whose names were Wenham and Jerry Gardner.  There’s nothing in fast life which those young men haven’t tried.  Between them, I should say they represented everything that was known of debauchery and dissipation.  The eldest can’t be more than twenty-seven to-day, but if you were to see them in the morning, either of them, before they had been massaged and galvanized into life, you’d think they were little old men, with just strength enough left to crawl about.  Well, to cut a long story short, both of them fell in love with Elizabeth.”

“Brutes!” Tavernake interjected.

“I guess they found Miss Elizabeth a pretty tough nut to crack,” the detective went on.  “Anyhow, you know what her price was from her name, which is hers right enough.  Wenham, who was a year younger than his brother, was the first to bid it.  Three months ago, Mr. and Mrs. Wenham Gardner, Miss Beatrice, and the devoted father left New York in the Lusitania and came to London.”