Captain Cronin leaned forward, a queer excitement agitating him.

“Do you know what that doctor says to me, Monty?”

Shirley shook his head.

He says; “My God, it’s the third!”

Shirley’s white hand gripped the edge of the table.  “The Van
Cleft’s doctor is one of the greatest surgeons in the country,
Professor MacDonald of the Medical College.  He said that?”

“He did.  I answers, ‘Whadd’y mean the third?’ Then he looks me straight in the eye, and sings back, ‘None of your business.’” Cronin shook his head.  “I never seen a man with a squarer look, and yet he has me guessing.  I goes back to the garage, over past Eighth Avenue, you know, where two johns come up along side o’ me.  One rubs me with his elbow and the other applies that brass knuckle,—­then they gets pinched.  I got dressed up in a drug store, got the chauffeur’s license number, and goes on down to my office to see this girl.  She’s hysterical about his family using all their money to put her in jail.  I looks at her, and says, ’You won’t need their money to get to jail.  That old man’s dead!’ Her eyes was as big as saucers.  ’I thought old Daddy Van Cleft was drunk.’  I tells her, ’He was dead in that taxi, with a chorus girl, and a roll of bills gone.  What you got to say?’ She staggers forward and clutches my coat, and what do you think she says to me?”

Shirley made the inquiry only with his eyes, puffing his cigarette slowly.

“She looks sorter green, and repeats after me:  ’Dead, with a chorus girl, and a roll of bills gone,’—­just like a parrot.  Then she springs this on me:  ‘My God, it’s the third!’”

Shirley dropped his cigarette, leaning forward, all nonchalance gone.

“Where is she now?  Quick, let’s go to her.”

He rose to his feet.  Just then a door-boy walked through the grill-room toward him.  “A telephone call for Captain Cronin, sir; the party said hurry or he would miss something good.”

Shirley snapped out, “When has the rule about telephone calls in this club been changed?  You boys are never to tell any one that a member or guest are here until the name is announced.”

He turned toward the puzzled Captain.

“Did you ask any of your operatives to call you here?  You know what a risk you are taking, to connect me with this case like that, don’t you?”

“I never even breathed it to myself.  I told no one.”

“Follow me up to the telephone room.”

Shirley hurried through the grill, to the switchboard, near which stood the booths for private calls.  He called to one of the operators.  “Here, let me at that switchboard.”  He pushed the boy aside, and sat down in the vacated chair.

“Which trunk is it on?  Oh, I see, the second.  There Captain, take the fourth booth against the wall.”

Cronin stepped in.  Shirley connected up and listened with the transmitter of the operator at his ear, holding the line open.