"There's the telephone, or they may be using the mails, or they may have a confidential agent, a go-between," Hatch suggested. "I don't think the 'Gink' would take a chance with a go-between," said Brennan. Before they left him to hurry back to the office, Hatch agreed to make an affidavit containing what he had told them, including the portion of the story told by his wife, and had consented to allow them to obtain a sworn statement from Mrs. Hatch. "There's only one thing wrong with what we got from 'Big Jim,'" Brennan said as they left the jail, "and that is that it comes from a man facing a term in the penitentiary. It's difficult for people to believe a confessed swindler like Hatch, although he's telling the truth. Even his wife's story would be received skeptically simply because she is his wife. Gibson has such a hold on the city, such a reputation for honesty and integrity, such influential support, that his mere denial of what Hatch says would be believed implicitly." "But consider Hatch's story along with the framed-up Spring street raid and the information we have of how Cummings opened and closed the town to convince the people that Gibson is the only man who can stop crime," John argued. "We must look at it from the reader's viewpoint," said Brennan. "It's the reader whom we have to convince. He wants facts, plain, hard facts. We have nothing to actually show that Cummings framed the Spring street raid in collusion with Gibson. We have nothing to actually show that the opening and closing of the city by Cummings was to build up a reputation for Gibson. All that is mere inference, suspicion. And the weakness in Hatch's story is in the fact that he is a crook himself, although you and I know that he told us the truth." "Then we haven't enough yet?" said John. "I'm afraid not." "But you said last night that Cummings had made his one big mistake." "And I wasn't wrong when I said it. We don't have to take Hatch's story simply as it stands. It's up to us now to get corroboration enough to make it undeniable." "How?" "By finding someone who has seen Gibson visit Cummings' apartment, a janitor, a neighbor, the clerk at the desk, anyone." "Suppose no one saw him." "Then we must find out how they are communicating with each other. We can tap the telephone in Cummings' apartment and those at Gibson's office and home if it comes to that." P. Q. and the "chief" upheld Brennan's judgment that Hatch's story needed more corroboration than that given by his wife and that the attack on Gibson, exposing him as a fraud, would have to be postponed until one more link was added to the chain of evidence against him. It was decided that Brennan and John should concentrate their endeavors in an effort to discover the method of communication between Gibson and the "Gink." * * * * * That night John saw Consuello again and realized with a suddenness that shocked him that he loved her.