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Three days from the day he reached town the Westerner, whose name was Hartridge, lunched with him as his guest at the Roychester, a small, discreetly run hotel in Forty-sixth Street. After luncheon they sat down in the lobby for a smoke. For good and sufficient reasons Marr preferred as quiet a spot and as secluded a one as the lobby of the hotel might offer. He found it where a small red-leather sofa built for two stood in a sort of recess formed on one side by a jog in the wall and on the other side by the switchboard and the two booths which constituted the Roychester’s public telephone equipment. To call the guest rooms one made use of an instrument on the clerk’s desk, farther over to the left.

To this retreat Marr guided the big Oregonian. From it he had a fairly complete view of the lobby. This was essential since presently, if things went well or if they did not go well, he must privily give a designated signal for the benefit of a Gulwing underling, a lesser member of the mob, who was already on hand, standing off and on in the offing. Sitting there Marr was well protected from the view of persons passing through, bound to or from the grill room, the desk or the elevators. This also was as it should be. Better still, he was practically out of sight of those who might approach the telephone operator to enlist her services in securing outside calls. The outjutting furniture of her desk and the flanks of the nearermost pay booth hid him from them; only the top of the young woman’s head was visible as she sat ten feet away, facing her perforated board.

The voices of her patrons came to him, and her voice as she repeated the numbers after them: “Greenwich 978, please.”

“Larchmont 54 party J.”

“Worth 9009, please, miss.”

“Vanderbilt 100.”

And so on and so forth, in a steady patter, like raindrops falling; but though he could hear he could not be seen. Altogether, the spot was, for his own purposes, admirably arranged.

So they sat and smoked, and pretty soon, the occasion and the conditions and the time being ripe, Marr outlined to his new friend Hartridge, on pledge of secrecy, a wonderfully safe and wonderfully simple plan for taking its ill-gotten money away from a Tenderloin pool room. Swiftly he sketched in the details; the opportunity, he divulged in strict confidence, had just come to him. He confessed to having taken a great liking to Hartridge during their short acquaintance; Hartridge had impressed him as one who might be counted upon to know a good thing when he saw it, and so, inspired by these convictions, he was going to give Hartridge a chance to join him in the plunge and share with him the juicy proceeds. Besides, the more money risked the greater the killing. He himself had certain funds in hand, but more funds were needed if a real fortune was to be realized.

There was need, though, for prompt decision on the part of all concerned, because that very afternoon–in fact, within that same hour–there in the Roychester he was to meet, by appointment, the conniving manager of an uptown branch office of the telegraph company, who would cooperate in the undertaking and upon whose good offices in withholding flashed race results at Belmont Park until his fellow conspirators, acting on the information, could get their bets down upon the winners, depended the success of the venture. Only, strictly speaking, it would not be a venture at all, but a moral certainty, a cinch, the surest of all sure things. Guaranties against mischance entailing loss would be provided; he could promise his friend Hartridge that; and the telegraph manager, when he came shortly, would add further proof.

The question then was: Would Hartridge join him as a partner? And if so, about how much, in round figures, would Hartridge be willing to put up? He must know this in advance because he was prepared to match Hartridge’s investment dollar for dollar.