“Yes, Dillon,” agreed Garrick, “you have always played fair.  But what’s the idea?”

“You came up here for information, didn’t you?” persisted the commissioner.

Garrick nodded.

“Well do you know who that girl was who was murdered?” he asked leaning forward.

“No,” admitted Garrick.

“Of course not,” asserted Dillon triumphantly.  “We haven’t given it out yet—­and I don’t know as we shall.”

“No,” pursued Garrick, “I don’t know and I’ll admit that I’d like to know.  My position is, as it always has been, that we shouldn’t work at cross purposes.  I have drawn my own conclusions on the case and, to put it bluntly, it seemed to me clear that she was of the demi-monde.”

“She was—­in a sense,” vouchsafed the commissioner.  “Now,” he added, leaning forward impressively, “I’m going to tell you something.  That girl—­was one of the best stool pigeons we have ever had.”

Both Garrick and I were listening intently at, the surprising revelation of the commissioner.  He was pacing up and down, now, evidently much excited.

“As for me,” he continued, “I hate the stool pigeon method as much as anyone can.  I don’t like it.  I don’t relish the idea of being in partnership with crooks in any degree.  I hate an informer who worms himself or herself into a person’s friendship for the purpose of betraying it.  But the system is here.  I didn’t start it and I can’t change it.  As long as it’s here I must accept it and do business under it.  And, that being the case, I can’t afford to let matters like this killing pass without getting revenge, swift and sure.  You understand?  Someone’s going to suffer for the killing of that girl, not only because it was a brutal murder, but because the department has got to make an example or no one whom we employ is safe.”

Dillon was shouldering his burly form up and down the office in his excitement.  He paused in front of us, to proceed.

“I’ve got one of my best men on the case now—­Inspector Herman.  I’ll introduce you to him, if he happens to be around.  Herman’s all right.  But here you come in, Garrick, and tell me you picked up something that my man missed up there in Jersey.  I know it’s the truth, too.  I’ve worked with you and seen enough of you to know that you wouldn’t say a thing like that as a bluff to me.”

Dillon was evidently debating something in his mind.

“Herman’ll have to stand it,” he went on, half to himself.  “I don’t care whether he gets jealous or not.”

He paused and looked Garrick squarely in the eye, as he led up to his proposal.  “Garrick,” he said slowly, “I’d like to have you take up the case for us, too.  I’ve heard already that you are working on the automobile cases.  You see, I have ways of getting information myself.  We’re not so helpless as your friend McBirney, maybe, thinks.”

He faced us and it was almost as if he read our minds.