upon those ladies,--" Tavernake
began, threateningly.

The detective laughed and patted him on the shoulder.

"It isn't my business to try and fasten things upon any one," he
interrupted. "At the same time, you seem to be a friend of Mrs. Wenham
Gardner, and it is just as well that some one should warn her."

"Warn her of what?" Tavernake asked.

The detective looked at his cigar meditatively.

"Make her understand that there is trouble ahead," he replied.

Tavernake sipped his whiskey and soda and lit a cigarette. Then he
turned in his chair and looked thoughtfully at his companion. Pritchard
was a striking-looking man, with hard, clean-cut features--a man of
determination.

"Mr. Pritchard, I am a clerk in an estate office. My people were
work-people and I am trying to better myself in the world. I haven't
learned how to beat about a subject, but I have learned a little of the
world, and I know that people such as you are not in the habit of doing
things without a reason. Why the devil have you brought me in here to
talk about Mrs. Gardner and her sister? If you've anything to say, why
don't you go to Mrs. Gardner herself and say it? Why do you come and
talk to strangers about their affairs? I am here listening to you, but I
tell you straight I don't like it."

Pritchard nodded.

"Say, I am not sure that I don't like that sort of talk," he declared.
"I know all about you, young man. You're in Dowling & Spence's office
and you've got to quit. You've got an estate you want financing.
Miss Beatrice Franklin was living under your roof--as your sister, I
understand--until yesterday, and Mrs. Gardner, for some reason of her
own, seems to be doing her best to add you to the list of her admirers.
I am not sure what it all means but I could make a pretty good guess.
Here's my point, though. You're right. I didn't bring you here for your
health. I brought you here because you can do me a service and yourself
one at the same time, and you'll be doing no one any harm, nobody you
care about, anyway. I have no grudge against Miss Beatrice. I'd just as
soon she kept out of the trouble that's coming."

"What is this service?" Tavernake asked.

Pritchard for the moment evaded the point.

"I dare say you can understand, Mr. Tavernake," he said, "that in my
profession one has to sometimes go a long way round to get a man or a
woman just where you want them. Now we merely glanced at that table as
we came in, and I can tell