The Gray Brotherhood

 An exciting story of Chester Fay, underworld prince, and of one of his most daredevil exploits ... Henry Leverage at his best.

A gray taxi was threading the traffic of Fifth Avenue. Up through the wealthiest street in the world the driver flashed with all the aplomb of a professional “bucker” who knew the elastic limits of the automobile laws.

Chester Fay leaned forward now and then and studied the hands which shifted the lever at the street intersections like those of an American Ace at the “stick” of a biplane.

“Good boy,” he exclaimed when the taxi came to a grinding halt before the doorman of the Hotel Rockingham. “Good kid!” he added when he extended the fare.

“I thank you,” said the driver of the gray taxi.

Fay paused at the marble steps of the Hotel Rockingham. The taxi turned and darted southward.

Wheeling with a pucker of interest on his features, Fay strode through an alley of palms and bronze vases and leaned over an onyx-topped desk where stood a trim-looking clerk whose collar and tie indicated prosperity in subordinate positions.

“Arthur Hilton?” Fay questioned.

“By appointment?”

“Yes. He phoned me at—” Fay glanced up to the gilt clock over the clerk’s head. “Exactly twenty minutes ago!” he declared.

The page who responded to the pressure of a button led the way to a private elevator, nodded to the pilot and closed the green-grilled door when Fay stepped briskly inside the cage.

He was whisked to a silent stop on an upper floor. He stepped out and faced a gray-haired English detective of the superior type, who had been pacing an ornate hallway.

“Arthur Hilton?” said Fay.

“By Sir Arthur’s consent?”

“Certainly!”

“You may follow me,” drawled the Scotland Yard man.

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