A brief investigation proved the door to be unlocked. As he quietly pulled the door open he saw that the room was absolutely bare, and that the light came from the mud-pasted windows facing a brick wall not five feet from them.
Bill tip-toed across the room, and raised one of the windows. To his satisfaction he at once noticed the drain pipe at arm's length. A moment later he had slid to the floor below.
To his surprise he saw the window of that mysterious room wide open. He could see only part of it. There seemed many men listlessly sitting about, though the majority kept unseeing eyes on a blackboard.
Bill meant that it was a fake racing broker's place. In years gone by there were many such dens of evil in New York, where congregated the broken-hearted, the reckless, the unscrupulous, all of whom tempted fate on this horse or that. As a rule the proprietor controlled the destinies of his victims, for he could "fake" any information he desired as to what horse won or lost. Happily these dens are now more scarce than hen's teeth. It was these dens, the graves of dupes, that were called _blind tigers_.
"Does Tom play the ponies?" wondered Bill.
Somewhere a ticker droned, and a husky voice announced:
"Gas a half--five eighths; Steel six--nine hundred at a quarter--a thousand--five-hundred--a quarter--an eighth--Erie--an eighth--Steam--an eighth----"
"What does this mean?" questioned Bill. "It sounds like stock quotations. Can it be----?"
He decided to risk glancing into the room.
At some risk of losing his hold he balanced himself in order to accomplish his wish.
He saw a room, unclean and unwholesome. The men seemed to be of the discarded of the street, the diseased and maimed of the financial district; here and there was a younger, smarter type, the kind that makes the gangster, the pickpocket and worse. He also saw Tom sitting quietly yet alert. At his elbow was a young man, somewhat older than Tom. On the wall facing the window was a great blackboard, and as the ticker spelled out its information, and the slovenly dressed clerk gave it voice, a second clerk chalked away without cessation.
Beyond this clerk's announcements everything was quiet. Bill felt himself slipping, so he silently swung back to his former position. The light of understanding was in his eyes.