"It's a pipe," Bat heard him declare in an exultant tone; "a regular pipe. All we got to do is to----" Here the voice sank and he went on, his hands clutching Fenton's arms in a strong grip. The intense eagerness of the two, the excitement which one had imparted to the other, interested Bat. So many curious and unaccountable things had happened of late that he had gotten into the habit of looking for them, and it was with difficulty that he separated even ordinary occurrences from the matter which had been so growing in his mind. It might be, so ran his thought, that this incident had its place in the chain he had seen making--a tangled, hopeless chain to him, without beginning or end.
"But then again--and it's a thousand to one against--it might be nothing at all," was Bat's next judgment. "I'm getting all mixed in my signals and----"
Here he became aware that Big Slim was talking to him; the burglar had run the game out and had put away his cue.
"As you've taken on this thing for me," he was saying, "I'm going across the river to look up some prospects."
"All right," said Bat, nodding. "Go ahead. I'll stick around a while."
With a wink and a gesture of the thumb toward Fenton, Big Slim went away. Bat carelessly stepped nearer to the two men and seemed greatly interested in a racing chart posted upon the wall.
"I told you there was a chance," Fenton was saying. "Didn't I? I knew the thing would pull up at Quigley's some time or another, didn't I?"
"I didn't think much of it," said Hutchinson, with the air of one who was wrong, and is quite delighted with his bigness in acknowledging it. "But I can see now that I didn't look at it right."
"Leave it to me," said Fenton, smiling expansively. "Little tricks like this are right in my line. And now I'll tell you what we'll do; we'll----"
"Wait," said he. "Don't be in a rush. This ain't the kind of a thing to hurry through. You've got to take your time; you've got to think it out." The broken-nosed man seemed impressed by both the manner and the words of the other; and, noting this, Hutchinson went on: "Sleep on it. That's a good way. And I'll do the same. Then I'll run in to your place to-morrow afternoon, and we can put your ideas into good shape."