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excited."
    "Get going."
    "I'm off."
    Hanging up, Ben sat down on the unmade bed, his watch in his hand. At the end of fifteen minutes he dialed the Pioneer. "City desk, please...Hello, you want a tip on that bandit, Arch Rossi?"
    "What do you think?"
    "O.K., I can't tell you where he is, but I can tell you where his pal is, and if you hop on it, maybe you can get some dope from him."
    "I'll bite, where is he?"
    "Castleton."
    "Why?"
    "Caspar was after him, for dropping Rossi at the Columbus. He was afraid to go home, and he went to Jansen. So Jansen's taking him to the Castleton cops, for protection and maybe some evidence. They started ten or fifteen minutes ago, in Jansen's car."
    "Who are you?"
    "Little Jack Horner."
    "O.K., Jack. Thanks."
    When the first editions came out, it developed that the newspaper had done what Ben no doubt expected. It had chartered a special plane, and had reporters and photographers waiting when Jansen walked into Castleton police headquarters with Herndon. In the big room, Ben and Lefty read silently, studied the pictures of Jansen, of Herndon, even of Rossi, in a blown-up snapshot that somebody had dug up. The buzzer kept sounding, and Lefty kept jumping up to admit various personages: Jack Brady, secretary to the Mayor; Inspector Cantrell, of the Police Department; James Joseph Bresnahan, ace reporter for the Pioneer; photographers, bellboys, telegraph messengers. The Bresnahan interview broke for the financial edition, and Lefty began to curse when he read it. It was mainly Bresnahan, in an F. Scott Fitzgerald picture of Caspar, as though he were a great Gatsby of some credit to the town. But it was quite a little Caspar, too, in an interview that gave no names, but intimated all too plainly that if the citizenry wanted to know more about Rossi, or of the various scandals that had recently rocked the town, it might ask a certain society racketeer who knew much more than many might think.
    In the five-star final, there was a picture of Dick Delany, standing beside his car, about to depart for Chicago, where, it was explained, he would interview his brother, as special correspondent for the paper, and find out what truth there might be in the Caspar charges, or in the various rumors that were flying around. When he saw this, Ben managed a fair imitation of a snicker. "Say, that's a laugh—they're hiring Dick Delany to drive over to Chicago and interview Bill on what Solly's saying about him."
    "I see they are."
    "I guess Sol's not in any real danger."
    "How you figure that out?"
    "If they really mean it, why don't they put a real reporter on it? What's the idea of sending Dick Delany, that stumble-bum that don't hardly know right from left? To me, that looks quite a lot like a coat of whitewash."
    "To me it looks different."
    "Yeah? How so?"
    "What you say, that would be O.K. if Solly had it doped right. If Delany was back of this stuff that's being sprung by the Jansen people, and especially that girl, then sending Dick over would be about the dumbest play they could think up, because it would just be helping him cover up. But if Solly's got it wrong, and Delany's a little sore, and wants to shoot off his mouth, then Dick would just be the perfect guy for him to talk to, wouldn't it? To me —of course nobody pays any attention to what I say around here any more, and it's just one mug's opinion—but to me it looks like they straightened Solly up for the old one-two and no bell to save him. First they send Bresnahan over here and get him to shoot off his face, and you'll notice Dick's got that paper in his hand even while he's having his picture taken. If Bill needed anything more to open him up, that would do it."
    Carefully, Lefty read the Pioneer's write-up of Mr. Bill Delany; of his start as a hostler in the Jardine stables; of his rise to riding instructor, to exhibitor of mounts at local horse shows; of his acquisition of various runners, particularly Golden Bough, a winner of purses