The Chinese Parrot (Charlie Chan Detective Series) — page 373: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Ral gambling house of one Jack McGuire, in Forty-fourth Street. I sent my secretary, Martin Thorn, to investigate. He reported that Delaney was making a good job of it— not, of course, so good that he could deceive any one really close to me, but good enough to fool people who knew me only from photographs. I put my lawyer on the matter, and he came back and said that Delaney had agreed to desist, on threat of arrest. "And I imagine he did drop it—in the gambling houses. What happened afterward I can only conjecture, but I guess I can hit it pretty close. These two Maydorf boys, Shaky Phil and"—he nodded at Gamble—"his brother who is known to the police as the professor, were the brains of the particular gang at McGuire's. They must long ago have conceived the plan of having Delaney impersonate me some where, some time. They could do nothing without the aid of my secretary, Thorn, but they evidently found him willing. Finally they hit on the desert as the proper locale for the enterprise. It was an excellent selection. I come here rarely; meet few people when I do come. Once they could get me here alone, without my family, it was a simple matter. All they had to do was put me out of the way, and then P.J. Madden appears with his secretary, who is better known locally than he is—no one is going to dream of questioning his identity, particularly as he looks just like his pictures." Madden puffed thoughtfully on his cigar. "I've been expecting some such move for years. I feared no man in the world—except Delaney. The possibilities of the harm he might do me were enormous. Once I saw him in a 373 comiicboeoe S CO