“Betcher life Scraggy knows his biz,” said Isaac, in a tough way. “He’ll make anything pay. This ere asylum is a dead open cinch fer a fortune. See!” “Gosh!” exclaimed Harry, rolling his eyes up. “Yu don’t say so? What kind of mad people is there here?” “Oh, thar’s all kinds,” replied the keeper. “Them that’s fat an’ them that’s lean. Men an’ women, an’ anybody whose friends don’t want ’em around. Do ye see?” “What’s that ye say?” interrogated Harry. “What’s that about people’s friends?” “If ye don’t ax me too many questions I’ll tell ye no lies!” said Isaac with a shrewd wink. “I say,” said Harry, in a dull way, “s’posin’ ye knew a man yu didn’t like! Couldn’t ye put him in this ’ere ’sylum an’ swear he wuz crazy?” Isaac looked sharply at Harry. “Have you any friends you want to git rid of?” he asked. “Wall, I dunno! That depends.” The keeper chuckled. “You kin bet your dimes that this is a straight joint,” he said. “If anybody gits in hyar they stays hyar.” “P’r’aps ye won’t let us out,” said Harry, suspiciously. Isaac laughed loudly. “P’r’aps we won’t, you jay!” he declared. “This is a hot place for jays, you can bet!” “Do women ever go crazy?” asked Harry, credulously. “Eh?” exclaimed the keeper in surprise. “Do women go crazy? Wall, I should say so!” “Are there any here?” “Any crazy women here? Well, there’s one on the very floor above this.” The detectives had the deepest of interest. They questioned Isaac closely and skillfully, but they could learn no more. They wondered who the lady inmate of the asylum was. But they felt sure that before morning the chance would be given them to ascertain. CHAPTER X. THE ASYLUM PRISONER. Isaac, the keeper, became quite voluble after a few drinks of whisky. He talked freely and the detectives used every effort to pump him. They learned that there was a strange female patient in the asylum. That she had been brought there by the four crooks. That all the gang were in the asylum and that Dr. Scraggs was a close ally. All this Isaac, of course, did not tell them in as many words. But from his conversation these facts were easily gathered. Altogether the Bradys were well satisfied with the progress of affairs. They had all their birds located and but for the embargo of the storm they might easily have summoned officers and completed the arrest of their birds. Napoleon Blood was safely hidden in the asylum. Under ordinary circumstances there would have been scant chance of his being found. But the Bradys were in luck. Their foes, from dogging their footsteps with murderous intent, were now in the position of being dogged themselves. The race for life which they had intended giving the detectives had been arrested by circumstances. Altogether the odds were just now decidedly in the detectives’ favor. But the Bradys were not disposed to spend their whole evening in the kitchen of the asylum.