it leads to. I can look ahead and see through things. I can
understand too easily." She came to a stop, and sat back, with one
white hand on either arm of the chair. "And I 'm afraid to go on. I
want to begin over. And I want to begin on the right side!"

He sat pondering just how much of this he could believe. But she
disregarded his veiled impassivity.

"I want you to take Picture 3,970 out of the Identification Bureau, the
picture and the Bertillon measurements. And then I want you to give me
the chance I asked for."

"But that does not rest with me, Miss Verriner!"

"It will rest with you. I could n't stool with my own people here.
But Wilkie knows my value. He knows what I can do for the service if I
'm on their side. He could let me begin with the Ellis Island
spotting. I could stop that Stockholm white-slave work in two months.
And when you see Wilkie to-morrow you can swing me one way or the
other!"

Copeland, with his chin on his bony breast, looked up to smile into her
intent and staring eyes.

"You are a very clever woman," he said. "And what is more, you know a
great deal!"

"I know a great deal!" she slowly repeated, and her steady gaze
succeeded in taking the ironic smile out of the corners of his eyes.

"Your knowledge," he said with a deliberation equal to her own, "will
prove of great value to you--as an agent with Wilkie."

"That's as you say!" she quietly amended as she rose to her feet.
There was no actual threat in her words, just as there was no actual
mockery in his. But each was keenly conscious of the wheels that
revolved within wheels, of the intricacies through which each was
threading a way to certain remote ends. She picked up her black gloves
from the desk top. She stood there, waiting.

"You can count on me," he finally said, as he rose from his chair. "I
'll attend to the picture. And I 'll say the right thing to Wilkie!"

"Then let's shake hands on it!" she quietly concluded. And as they
shook hands her gray-irised eyes gazed intently and interrogatively
into his.

V (a)

When Never-Fail Blake alighted from his sleeper in Montreal he found
one of Teal's men awaiting him at Bonaventure Station. There had been
a hitch or a leak somewhere, this man reported. Binhart, in some way,
had slipped through their fingers.

All they knew was that the man they were tailing had bought a ticket
for Winnipeg, that he was not in Montreal, and that, beyond the