'Miss' Dunlap," remarked Brainard. "It sounds more
plausible."

Quietly he arranged her duties so that she would seem to be very busy
without having anything which really interfered with the purpose of her
presence.

She had been thinking rapidly. Late in the forenoon she reached a
decision. A little errand uptown kept her longer than she expected, but
by the late afternoon she was back again at her desk, on which rested a
small package which had been delivered by messenger for her.

"I beg you won't think as badly of me as it seems on the surface, Miss
Dunlap," remarked Brainard, stopping beside her desk.

"I don't think badly of you," she answered in a low voice. "You are not
the only man who has been caught with a crowd of crooks who plan to
leave him holding the bag."

"Oh, it isn't that," he hastened, "I mean this Blanche Leblanc affair.
May I be frank with you?"

It was not the first time Constance had been made a confidante of the
troubles of the heart, and yet there was something fascinating about
having a man like Brainard consider her worthy of being trusted with
what meant so much to him.

"I'm not altogether to blame." he went on slowly. "The estrangement
between my wife and myself came long before that little affair. It
began over--well--over what they call a serious difference in
temperament. You know a man--an ambitious man--needs a partner, a woman
who can use the social position that money gives not alone for pleasure
but as a means of advancing the partnership. I never had that. The more
I advanced, the more I found her becoming a butterfly--and not as
attractive as the other butterflies either. She went one way--I,
another. Oh well--what's the use? I went too far--the wrong way. I must
pay. Only let me save what I can from the wreck."

It was not Constance, the woman, to whom he was talking. It was
Constance, the secretary. Yet it was the woman, not the secretary, who
listened.

Brainard stopped again beside her desk.

"All that is neither here nor there," he remarked, forcing a change in
his manner. "I am in for it. Now, the question is--what are we going to
do about it!"

Constance had unwrapped the package on her desk, disclosing an oblong
box.

"What's that?" he asked curiously.

"Mr. Brainard," she answered tapping the box, "there's no limit to the
use of this little machine for our purposes. We can get at their most
vital secrets with it. We can discover every plan which they