apparently
stenographers. Doors of several smaller offices, opening upon the
larger room, bore names, among which he saw "Mr. Corvet" and "Mr.
Spearman."

"It won't look like that a month from now," Constance said, catching
his expression. "Just now, you know, the straits and all the northern
lakes are locked fast with ice. There's nothing going on now except
the winter traffic on Lake Michigan and, to a much smaller extent, on
Ontario and Erie; we have an interest in some winter boats, but we
don't operate them from here. Next month we will be busy fitting out,
and the month after that all the ships we have will be upon the water."

She led the way on past to a door farther down the corridor, which bore
merely the name, "Lawrence Sherrill"; evidently Sherrill, who had
interests aside from the shipping business, had offices connected with
but not actually a part of the offices of Corvet, Sherrill, and
Spearman. A girl was on guard on the other side of the door; she
recognized Constance Sherrill at once and, saying that Mr. Sherrill had
been awaiting Mr. Conrad, she opened an inner door and led Alan into a
large, many-windowed room, where Sherrill was sitting alone before a
table-desk. He arose, a moment after the door opened, and spoke a word
to his daughter, who had followed Alan and the girl to the door, but
who had halted there. Constance withdrew, and the girl from the outer
office also went away, closing the door behind her. Sherrill pulled
the "visitor's chair" rather close to his desk and to his own big
leather chair before asking Alan to seat himself.

"You wanted to tell me, or ask me, something last night, my daughter
has told me," Sherrill said cordially. "I'm sorry I wasn't home when
you came back."

"I wanted to ask you, Mr. Sherrill," Alan said, "about those facts in
regard to Mr. Corvet which you mentioned to me yesterday but did not
explain. You said it would not aid me to know them; but I found
certain things in Mr. Corvet's house last night which made me want to
know, if I could, everything you could tell me."

Sherrill opened a drawer and took out a large, plain envelope.

"I did not tell you about these yesterday, Alan," he said, "not only
because I had not decided how to act in regard to these matters, but
because I had not said anything to Mr. Spearman about them previously,
because I expected to get some additional information from you. After
seeing you, I was obliged to wait for