ors. Then my connection
with this company and its affairs terminates forever."

He gazed fiercely at the impassive face of John Witherspoon, and
rising, with a bow of general adieu, stalked into the hall.

But he turned as Boardman, Warner, and Witherspoon, following, drew
him into the room where Clayton had fought out his life struggles.

"You may now deliver us the papers taken from this desk, and so,
escape a prosecution," firmly remarked Boardman. Ferris sat down
at the table and wrote a few lines. Handing the paper to the senior
executor, he said, with a cutting sneer:

"There is my bill for one hundred thousand dollars for legal services
in the last five years for Hugh Worthington. Upon its approval and
payment, I will deliver over all the papers of our long intimacy,
and sign clean receipts.

"I will then stipulate not to approach Miss Worthington in any
manner. Here are all the valueless papers you demand. Will you give
me a receipt for them?"

"You took them surreptitiously! You can well afford to trust our
honor," snappishly said Warner. "Very good," added Boardman. "You
will hear from us, as to your claim, in due time."

When Arthur Ferris' footfall died out upon the stair, Boardman
drily remarked, as he pocketed the bill, "The price of a scoundrel's
silence! Well, we will see! But the fellow really knows nothing of
the murder! Let us go to work, gentlemen."

When they returned to the conference room, below them, on the street,
the deposed favorite of fortune was chatting with a new officer on
the beat.

"McNerney? Oh, yes," grinned the strange policeman. "He has taken
two-months' leave and goes over to see his ould mother, in Oireland.
His home address, sure, I don't know. Mayhap the sergeant can tell
ye."

While the bluecoat sauntered away, Ferris mentally recorded another
mistake. "I should have thrown the hat-box after the hat," he
murmured. "A few hundred dollars would have been well spent. And yet
he is probably in their ring now. His 'leave of absence' indicates
a very sudden return of affection for the 'ould mother.'"

Ferris now decided upon a policy of open frankness and calm
indifference. "There is no one I could have made use of, but that
Jew office boy," he mused, as he sauntered up Broadway, "and they
have bought him out, over my head. I will let my little bill for
"legal services" ripen. I can afford to let my 'legal field' lie
fallow for the summer."

And yet he curse