iously Lidgerwood picked up a pencil and began adding more
squares to the miniature checker-board on his desk blotter. It was
altogether subversive of his own idea of fitness to be discussing his
chief clerk with his trainmaster, but McCloskey had proved himself an
honest partisan and a fearless one, and Lidgerwood was at a pass where
the good counsel of even a subordinate was not to be despised.

"I don't want to do Hallock an injustice," he went on, after a hesitant
pause, "neither do I wish to dig up the past, for him or for anybody. I
was hoping that you might know some of the inside details, and so make
it easier for me to get at the truth. I can't believe that Hallock was
culpably responsible for the disappearance of the money."

By this time McCloskey had his hat tilted to the belligerent angle.

"I'm not a fair witness," he reiterated. "There's been gossip, and I've
listened to it."

"About this building and loan mess?"

"No; about the wife."

"To Hallock's discredit, you mean?"

"You'd think so: there was a scandal of some sort; I don't know what it
was--never wanted to know. But there are men here in Angels who hint
that Hallock killed the woman and sunk her body in the Timanyoni."

"Heavens!" exclaimed Lidgerwood, under his breath. "I can't believe
that, Mac."

"I don't know as I do, but I can tell you a thing that I do know, Mr.
Lidgerwood: Hallock is a devil out of hell when it comes to paying a
grudge. There was a freight-conductor named Jackson that he had a shindy
with in Mr. Ferguson's time, and it came to blows. Hallock got the worst
of the fist-fight, but Ferguson made a joke of it and wouldn't fire
Jackson. Hallock bided his time like an Indian, and worked it around so
that Jackson got promoted to a passenger run. After that it was easy."

"How so?"

"It was the devil's own game. Jackson was a handsome young fellow, and
Hallock set a woman on him--a woman out of Cat Biggs's dance-hall. From
that to holding out fares to get more money to squander was only a step
for the young fool, and he took it. Having baited the trap and set it,
Hallock sprung it. One fine day Jackson was caught red-handed and turned
over to the company lawyers. There had been a good bit of talk and they
made an example of him. He's got a couple of years to serve yet, I
believe."

Lidgerwood was listening thoughtfully. The story which had ended so
disastrously for the young conductor threw a rather lurid sidelight upo