did
not look Eaton's way.

"You may go," Santoine said at last.

"Go?" Eaton asked.

"You may leave the room. Blatchford will meet you downstairs."

Santoine reached for the house telephone beside his bed--receiver and
transmitter on one light band--and gave directions to have Blatchford
await Eaton in the hall below.

Eaton stood an instant longer, studying Santoine and trying fruitlessly
to make out what was passing in the blind man's mind. He was
distinctly frightened by the revelation he just had had of Santoine's
clear, implacable reasoning regarding him; for none of the blind man's
deductions about him had been wrong--all had been the exact, though
incomplete, truth. It was clear to him that Santoine was close--much
closer even than Santoine himself yet appreciated--to knowing Eaton's
identity; it was even probable that one single additional fact--the
discovery, for instance, that Miss Davis was the source of the second
telegram received by Eaton on the train--would reveal everything to
Santoine. And Eaton was not certain that Santoine, even without any
new information, would not reach the truth unaided at any moment. So
Eaton knew that he himself must act before this happened. But so long
as the safe in Santoine's study was kept locked or was left open only
while some one was in the room with it, he could not act until he had
received help from outside; and he had not yet received that help; he
could not hurry it or even tell how soon it was likely to come. He had
seen Miss Davis several times as she passed through the halls going or
coming for her work with Avery; but Blatchford had always been with
him, and he had been unable to speak with her or to receive any signal
from her.

As his mind reviewed, almost instantaneously, these considerations, he
glanced again at Harriet; her eyes, this time, met his, but she looked
away immediately. He could not tell what effect Santoine's revelations
had had on her, except that she seemed to be in complete accord with
her father. As he went toward the door, she made no move to accompany
him. He went out without speaking and closed the inner and the outer
doors behind him; then he went down to Blatchford.

For several minutes after Eaton had left the room, Santoine thought in
silence. Harriet stayed motionless, watching him; the extent to which
he had been shaken and disturbed by the series of events which had
started with Warden's murder, came home stro