“Now, young man, I’ll see whether you’ll become communicative. We’ll talk this over without interruptions.” “That’s good enough for me,” Patsy coolly asserted. “I’m right here to do my share of the talking--if the subject suits me.” CHAPTER VIII. CAPTAIN DILLON’S VISITOR. It was about half past ten when Patsy Garvan heard Carney and Larry Trent hurry out of the house in which he found himself effectively trapped. Less than half an hour later a rather roughly clad man with bearded face and rounded shoulders, a face and figure denoting that he was well along in years, passed the Carnegie Library and crossed Vernon Square, and a few minutes later fell to sizing up an apartment house in a neighboring street. It was one of those attractive places of the kind with which Washington abounded, a double rise of flats entered from a neatly trimmed front yard, with well-shaded grounds on either side of the ivy-grown brick edifice. The ground-floor flat on one side was occupied by a solitary and exclusive tenant, the ex-army officer, Captain Casper Dillon. He kept no servants and had very few visitors. He was lounging in his library, clad in a smoking jacket and absorbed in the morning newspapers, when his bell rang. He glanced through the partly open French window, which overlooked the side grounds and a walk leading around to the rear door. He could not see who was in the front vestibule. He arose, pausing for a moment, and then took a revolver from the table drawer and slipped it into his hip pocket. Striding through the hall, he opened the front door and gazed a bit sharply at his caller--the bearded man with rounded shoulders. “Well, sir?” he said shortly. “I’m sent here to see Captain Dillon, sir,” said the visitor, with subdued and husky voice. “Is he at home this morning?” “He is seldom at home to strangers,” Captain Dillon replied, with sharper scrutiny. “What is your business?” “I’m sent to tell only him, sir, no one else,” was the reply. “Here is my card, sir--Michael Rohan, sir. If he is at home, would you say this much to him: It’s about what happened a few nights back. That’s all I can say, sir.” Captain Dillon’s brows knit closer, but his searching scrutiny had proved ineffective. His visitor’s respectful air, his manifest humility, his evident aim to follow instructions that had been given him--these so plainly denoted that he was acting for others and had no aggressive intentions, that Captain Dillon was completely deceived. “You may come in, my man,” he said curtly, stepping back to admit him and then closing the door. “Come into the library. I will hear what you have to say.” Rohan followed him, removing his cap and gingerly taking a chair to which the ex-army officer pointed, one near a cloth-topped library table in the middle of the room. He laid his cap on it, and appeared to feel out of his element amid such superior surroundings.