that, are they?"

Disturbed as he was, he noticed that she regarded him with apparently
genuine interest--that, perhaps, she added to her interest a regret that
he had displayed no originality in the investigation, a man of his
intellect!

"They couldn't understand why you were playing Hastings' game," she
proceeded, "playing it to his smallest instructions."

"Hastings' game! What the thunder are they talking about? What do they
mean, his game?"

"His desire to keep suspicion away from the Sloanes and Mr. Webster.
That's what they hired him for--isn't it?"

"I guess it is--by gravy!" Mr. Crown's long-drawn sigh was distinctly
tremulous.

"That old man pockets his fee when he throws Gene Russell into jail.
Why, then, isn't it his game to convince you of Gene's guilt? Why isn't
it his game to persuade you of my secret knowledge of Gene's guilt?
Why----"

"So, that's----"

"Let me say what I started," she in turn interrupted him. "As one of
the reporters pointed out, why isn't it his game to try to make a fool
of you?"

The smile with which she recommended that rumour to his attention
incensed him further. It patronized him. It said, as openly as if she
had spoken the words: "I'm really very sorry for you."

He dropped his hands to his widespread knees, slid forward to the edge
of his chair, thrust his face closer to hers, peered into her hard face
for her meaning.

"Making a fool of me, is he?" he said in the brutal key of unrepressed
rage.

A quick motion of her lifted brows, a curve of her lower
lip--indubitably, a new significance of expression--stopped his
outburst.

"By George!" he said, taken aback. "By George!" he repeated, this time
in a coarse exultation. He thrust himself still closer to her, certain
now of her meaning.

"What do you know?" He lowered his voice and asked again: "Mrs. Brace,
what do you know?"

She moved back, farther from him. She was not to be rushed
into--anything. She made him appreciate the difficulty of "getting next"
to her. He no longer felt fear of her imposing on him--she had just
exposed, for his benefit, how Hastings had played on his credulity! He
felt grateful to her for that. His only anxiety now was that she might
change her mind, might refuse him the assistance which that new and
subtle expression had promised a moment ago.

"If I thought you'd use----" she began, broke off, and looked past his
shoulder at the opposite wall, the pupils of her eyes sharp p