Speed Saunders: The Grogan Case (at The Bantam Club)

Yesterday, Speed Saunders announced that he was going to The Bantam Club "at once", meaning he's there in medias res in the very next panel:

Hm. I guess their Beyond Earth faction chose the Harmony Affinity because they look quite at home in  all that miasma.

Why is an (apparently) well known felon like Dave Grogan voluntarily playing cards with the best known (and possibly only) Ace Investigator of all time, Speed Saunders?  Well, it's unlikely and odd but... think of the time it saves!

Speed is there to win some fake tenspots in a poker game from Grogan.

The size of a standard poker card is 2.5"x3.5", meaning Grogan's got some mitts on him.

Next we learn that Speed is greedy (at least for evidence).

When say a character "sees" something while he plays poker, are you being wittily ambiguous, writer Fred Guardineer?

Then we learn that Speed cheats at cards.

It's delightfully humanizing that, although Speed uses his god-like reality-manipulating powers to give himself a good poker hand, he flubs it by giving himself five Five Of Clubs.

Quick with his wits, Speed lampshades the absurdity of his five of a kind, and confuses Grogan by claiming that he, TOO, is the victim of some card-dealing shenangigans.

Just kidding. Actually, he simply socks Grogan in the jaw.

I don't know why Speed would bother to cheat, except that it gives him an excuse to halt the game. It's needlessly violet, but, hey, think of the time he saves!

Probably cause? Um; yeah; sure.  It's sure faster than getting a warrant.

I doubt that Speed himself has the Tier 3 "Alien Hybridization" tech that would allow him to breathe that noisome miasma which seems native to the felons. So I imagine that Speed has simply chosen NOT TO BREATHE for the duration of his visit to The Bantam Club, because as an instantiated abstract ideal, breathing is optional for him.  Anyway, Speed breathlessly snags the evidence he wants from Grogan's billfold and backs out the door like a Western bandit robbing a frontier bank.

"Um, it's a little late for that, Speed, you already socked Grogan SO HARD in the left side of his face, that even the RIGHT SIDE appears to be in pain."

Speed takes the bills to an Unnamed Authority Figure whose job it is to confirm Speed's rightness and emit exposition.

Ignoring the Commissioner's statement of the obvious issue, Speed gives him a stern off-panel lecture about the atrocious color of his office walls, warning him to get that fixed soon or Speed will be taking his evidence to some OTHER unnamed authority figure with better taste.

What does Speed do next to track down the mastermind behind the counterfeit ring? If you are a reader of this blog, you have some familiarity with his methods; take a guess! Does Speed:

1. wake the Dean / consult a counterfeiting expert;
2. do some research at the Central Library;
3. happen upon a Useful And Attractive Female Informant; or
4. use his Face Of Judgement on Grogan to get him to spill the beans?

Reminder: Speed's decisions are always made with the desire to save time.