“What did the Boss say when he heard it?”

“Mad as—–.  We gotter lay low now.”

“The Chief’s gone up-state, I guess.”

“We can guess all we want.  The Boss knows.  I don’t.”

“Why didn’t they make a pinch?  Ain’t there nobody watchin’ now?”

“Naw.  They ain’t got nothin’ on us.  Say, the Chief can put them fellers just where he wants ’em.  See the paper this morning?  That was some raid up at the joint—­eh?”

“You bet.  That Garrick’s a pretty smooth chap.  But the Chief can put it all over him.”

“Yep,” agreed the other speaker.

I handed the receivers back to Garrick with a smile.

“You are not without some admirers,” I remarked, repeating the conversation substantially to him.  “They’d shoot up the neighbourhood, I imagine, if they knew the truth.”

Hour after hour we took turns listening at the detectaphone.  We gathered a choice collection of slang and epithets, but very little real news.  However, it was evident that they had a wholesome respect for both the Chief and the Boss.  It seemed that the real head of the gang, if it was a gang, had disappeared, as one of the men had already hinted “up-state.”

Garrick had meanwhile brought out the other detectaphone box, which was longer and larger than the oak box.

“This isn’t a regular detactaphone,” he explained, “but it may vary the monotony of listening in and sometime I may find occasion to use it in another way, too.”

In one of the long faces were two square holes, from the edges of which the inside walls focussed back on two smaller, circular diaphragms.  That made the two openings act somewhat like megaphone horns to still further magnify the sound which was emitted directly from this receiver without using any earpieces, and could be listened to anywhere in the room, if we chose.  This was attached to the secret arrangement that had been connected with the telephone by replacing the regular by the prepared transmitter.

One of us was in the room listening all the time.  I remember once, while Guy had gone uptown for a short time, that I heard the telephone bell ring in the device at my ear.  Out of the larger box issued a voice talking to one of the men.

It was the man whom they referred to as the Chief.  He had nothing to say when he learned that the Boss had not showed up since early morning after he had been quizzed by the police.  But he left word that he would call up again.

“At least I know that our gunman friend, the Chief, is going to call up to-night,” I reported to Garrick on his return.

“I think he’ll be here, all right,” commented Garrick.  “I called up Dillon while I was out and he was convinced that the best way was, as I said, to seem to let up on them.  They didn’t get a word out of the fellow they call the Boss.  He lives down here a couple of streets, I believe, in a pretty tough place, even worse than the Old Tavern.  I let Dillon get a man in there, but I haven’t much hope.  He’s only a tool of the other whom they call Chief.  By the way, Forbes has disappeared.  I can’t find a trace of him since the raid on the gambling joint.”