"I sent it down to the despatcher's office by Barney."

Blount nodded. The message had not reached him; and its suppression was
doubtless another move in the subtle game.

"You say you couldn't find out what Gryson wanted?" he pressed.

"He--he seemed to be all torn up about something; couldn't say three
words without putting a cuss word in with them. The most I could get out
of him was that somebody was trying to double-cross him."

Blount took a cigar from his pocket and lighted it. He was faint for
lack of food, but he absently mistook the hunger for the tobacco
craving.

"Collins," he said evenly, "you appear to forget at times that you are
working for a man who has had some little experience with unwilling
witnesses in the courts. You are not telling me the truth; or, at least,
you're not telling me all of it. Let's have the part that you are
keeping back."

"The--the last time he was in, he--he did talk a little," faltered the
young man. "He's got something to sell, and he's f-fighting mad at Mr.
Kittredge. He said he was going to throw the gaff into somebody damn'
quick if Mr. Kittredge didn't wipe off the slate and c-come across with
the price."

"That is better," was the brief comment. "Now, then, why did you lie to
me in the first place?"

The stenographer shut his eyes and shrunk lower in his chair, but he
made no reply.

"I'll tell you why you lied," Blount went on, less harshly. "It was
because you were told to. Isn't that so?"

Collins nodded.

Reaching out quickly, Blount laid a hand on the young man's knee. "Fred,
what do you think of a soldier who takes his pay from one side and
fights on the other? That is what you've been doing, you know; it is
what you did when you put a dozen sheets of blank paper into an envelope
the other day--the day I sent you to get a file of letters marked
'private' from the safe."

The culprit drew away from the touch of the hand on his knee, and there
was fear, and behind the fear the courage of desperation, in his eyes
when he lifted them.

"You can give me the third degree if you want to, Mr. Blount, but as
long as I've got the breath to say no, I'll never tell you the next
thing you're going to ask me!"

Blount sprang up and went to stand at the window. There was a street
arc-lamp swinging in its high sling some distance below the window
level, its scintillant spark changing weirdly to blue and green and back
to blinding orange, and he stared so stead