If the letter from the
countryman strikes the dealers in green goods as sincere, they appoint
an interview with him by mail in rooms they rent for the purpose, and
if they, on meeting him there, think he is still in earnest and not a
detective or officer in disguise, they appoint still another
interview, to be held later in the day in the back room of some
saloon.
Then the countryman is watched throughout the day from the moment he
leaves the first meeting-place until he arrives at the saloon. If
anything in his conduct during that time leads the man whose duty it
is to follow him, or the "trailer," as the profession call it, to
believe he is a detective, he finds when he arrives at the saloon that
there is no one to receive him. But if the trailer regards his conduct
as unsuspicious, he is taken to another saloon, not the one just
appointed, which is, perhaps, a most respectable place, but to the
thieves' own private little rendezvous, where he is robbed in any of
the several different ways best suited to their purpose.
Snipes was a very good trailer. He was so little that no one ever
noticed him, and he could keep a man in sight no matter how big the
crowd was, or how rapidly it changed and shifted.
Pages:
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124