th them.
He said he wouldn't hurt you, but I--I didn't believe him, Tom. I
believed you, that you wanted to give dad a fair shake--"

Shandor was on his feet, his eyes blazing. "So you turned them over to
Dartmouth anyway? And what do you think he's done with them? Can you
tell me that? Where has he gone? Has he burnt them? If not, what's he
going to do with them?"

Her voice was weak, and she looked as if she were about to faint.
"That's what I'm trying to tell you," she said, shakily. "He doesn't
have them. I have them."

Shandor's jaw dropped. "Now, wait a minute," he said softly. "You gave
me the briefcase, Mariel snatched it and nearly killed me--"

"A dummy, Tom. I didn't know who to trust, but I knew I believed you
more than I believed Harry. Things happened so fast, and I was so
confused--" She looked straight at him. "I gave you a dummy, Tom."

His knees walked out from under him, then, and he sank into a chair.
"You've got them here, then," he said weakly.

"Yes. I have them here."

* * * * *

The room was in the back of the house, a small, crowded study, with a
green-shaded desk lamp. Shandor dumped the contents of the briefcase
onto the desk, and settled down, his heart pounding in his throat. He
started at the top of the pile, sifting, ripping out huge sheafs of
papers, receipts, notes, journals, clippings. He hardly noticed when the
girl slipped out of the room, and he was deep in study when she returned
half an hour later with steaming black coffee. With a grunt of thanks he
drank it, never shifting his attention from the scatter of papers,
papers from the personal file of a dead man. And slowly, the picture
unfolded.

An ugly picture. A picture of deceit, a picture full of lies, full of
secret promises, a picture of scheming, of plotting, planning,
influencing, coercing, cheating, propagandizing--all with one
single-minded aim, with a single terrible goal.

Shandor read, numbly, his mind twisting in protest as the picture
unfolded. David Ingersoll's control of Dartmouth Bearing Corporation and
its growing horde of subsidiaries under the figurehead of his protege,
Harry Dartmouth. The huge profits from the Chinese war, the relaxation
of control laws, the millions of war-won dollars ploughed back into
government bonds, in a thousand different names, all controlled by
Dartmouth Bearing Corporation--

And Ingersoll's own work in the diplomatic field--an incredibly