"Haven't I handled every case for you in confidence. I'm not a
fly-cop, Captain Cronin. I'm a consulting specialist, and
there's no shingle hung out. Perhaps you had better take it to
some one else."

Shirley pushed away his empty glass impatiently.

"There, Monty, I didn't mean to offend you. But there's such
swells in this and such a foxey bunch of blacklegs, that I'm as
nervous as a rookie cop on his first arrest. Don't hold a grudge
against me."

Shirley lit a cigarette and resumed his good nature: "Go on,
Captain. I'm so stale with dolce far niente, after the Black
Pearl affair last month, that I act like an amateur myself. Make
it short, though, for I'm going to the opera."

The Captain leaned over the table, his face tense with suppressed
emotion. He was a grizzled veteran of the New York police force:
a man who sought his quarry with the ferocity of a bull-dog, when
the line of search was definitely assured. Lacking imagination
and the subtler senses of criminology, Captain Cronin had built
up a reputation for success and honesty in every assignment by
bravery, persistence, and as in this case, the ability to cover
his own deductive weakness by employing the brains of others.

Montague Shirley was as antithetical from the veteran detective
as a man could well be. A noted athlete in his university, he
possessed a society rating in New York, at Newport and Tuxedo,
and on the Continent which was the envy of many a gilded youth