"You're a wizard," he said admiringly.

The reporter had met a bootlegger earlier in the evening and had two or
three drinks. He was mellow. "Oh, I'm wise," he said with a wink.
"Chuck Ellis isn't anybody's fool. Beat it, Lothario, while the
beating's good." The last sentence and the gesture that accompanied
the words were humorous exaggerations of old-time melodrama.

Lane took his advice without delay.




CHAPTER IX

THE STORY IN THE "NEWS"

From a booth in a drug-store on Sixteenth Street Kirby telephoned the
police that James Cunningham had been murdered at his home in the
Paradox Apartments. He stayed to answer no questions, but hung up at
once. From a side door of the store he stepped out to Welton Street
and walked to his hotel.

He passed a wretched night. The distress that flooded his mind was due
less to his own danger than to his anxiety for Rose. His course of
action was not at all clear to him in case he should be identified as
the man who had been seen going to and coming from the apartment of the
murdered man. He could not explain why he was there without
implicating Rose and her sister. He would not betray them. That of