“Clever,” I ejaculated.  “I suppose that occurred to him as soon as he read about the fire.  I have to hand it to him for being a deducer.”

Garrick smiled.

“There’s one thing, though, he does know,” he added, “and that is the gossip of the underworld right here in New York.”

“I should hope so,” I replied.  “That was his business to know.  Why, has he found out anything really new?”

“Why—­er—­yes.  Dillon tells me that it now appears that Forbes had been intimate with that Rena Taylor.”

“Yes?” I repeated, not surprised.

“At least that’s what Herman has told him.”

“Well,” I exclaimed in disgust, “Forbes is a fine one to run around with stool-pigeons and women of the Tenderloin, in addition to his other accomplishments, and then expect to associate with a girl like Violet Winslow.”

“It is scandalous,” he agreed.  “Why, according to Dillon and Herman, she must have been getting a good deal of evidence through her intimacy with Forbes.  They probably gambled together, drank together, and—–­”

“Do you suppose Forbes ever found out that she was really using him?”

Garrick shook his head.  “I can’t say,” he replied.  “There isn’t much value in this deductive, long distance detective work.  You reason a thing out to your satisfaction and then one little fact knocks all your clever reasoning sky-high.  The trouble here is that on this aspect of the case the truth seems to have been known by only two persons—­and one of them is dead, while the other has disappeared.”

“Strange what has become of Forbes,” I ruminated.

“It is indeed,” agreed Garrick.  “But then he was such a night-hawk that anything might easily have happened and no one be the wiser.  Since you saw him enter the gambling joint the night of the raid, I’ve been unable to get a line on him.  He must have gone through the tunnel to the ladies’ poolroom, but after he left that, presumably, I can’t find a trace of him.  Where he went no one seems to know.  This bit of gossip that Herman has unearthed is the first thing I’ve heard of him, definitely, for two days.”

“If Rena Taylor were alive,” I speculated, “I don’t think you’d have to look further for Forbes than to find her.”

“But she isn’t alive,” concluded Garrick, “and there is nothing to show that there was anyone else at the poolroom for women who interested him—­and—­well, this isn’t getting back to business.”

He turned toward the street.

“Let’s go down on a surface car,” he said.  “I think we ought to learn something down there at the Old Tavern, now.  If these people have done nothing more, they’ll think they have at least given an example of their resourcefulness and succeeded in throwing another scare into Warrington.  But there’s one thing I’d like to be able to tell Mr. Chief, however.  He can’t throw any scare into me, if that’s his game.”