l eyes riveted on her. "I find, for instance, that your
company has been undervaluing its imported goods. Undervaluing
merchandise is considered, I believe, one of the meanest forms of
smuggling. The undervaluer has frequently to make a tool of a man in
his employ. Then that tool must play on the frailties of an unfortunate
or weak examiner at the Public Stores where all invoices and
merchandise from foreign countries are examined."

Drummond had been trying to interrupt, but she had ignored him, and was
speaking rapidly so that he could get no chance.

"You have cheated the Government of hundreds of thousands dollars," she
hurried on facing Beverley and Dumont. "It would make a splendid
newspaper story."

Dumont moved uneasily. Drummond was now staring. It was a new phase of
the matter to him. He had not counted on handling a woman like
Constance, who knew how to take advantage of every weak spot in the
armor.

"We are wasting time," he interrupted brusquely. "Get back to the
original subject. There is a fifty thousand-dollar shortage on these
books."

The attempt clumsily to shift the case away again from Constance to
Dodge was apparent.

"Mrs. Dunlap's past troubles," Dodge asserted vigorously, "have nothing
to do with the case. It was cowardly to drag that in. But the other
matter of which she speaks has much to do with it."

"One moment, Murray," cried Constance. "Let me finish what I began.
This is my fight, too, now."

She was talking with blazing eyes and in quick, cutting tone.

"For three years he did your dirty work," she flashed. "He did the
bribing--and you saved half a million dollars."

"He has stolen fifty thousand," put in Beverley, white with anger.

"I have kept an account of everything," pursued Constance, without
pausing. "I have pieced the record together so that he can now connect
the men higher up with the actual acts he had to do. He can gain
immunity by turning state's evidence. I am not sure but that he might
be able to obtain his moiety of what the Government recovers if the
matter were brought to suit and won on the information he can furnish."

She paused. No one seemed to breathe.

"Now," she added impressively, "at ten per cent. commission the half
million that he saved for you yields fifty thousand dollars. That,
gentlemen, is the amount of the shortage--an offset."

"The deuce it is!" exclaimed Beverley.

Constance reached for a telephone on the desk near her.

"Get