ding the
three had parted.

"I suppose it would hardly be practicable," said Katherine when he had
finished, "to have a number of witnesses concealed at your place of
meeting and overhear your conversation?"

"No, it would be mighty difficult to pull that off."

"And what's more," she commented, "Mr. Blake would deny whatever they
said, and with his present popularity his words would carry more
weight than that of any half dozen witnesses we might get. At the
best, our charges would drag on for months, perhaps years, in the
courts, with in the end the majority of the people believing in him.
With the election so near, we must have instantaneous results. We
must use a means of exposing him that will instantly convince all the
people."

"That's the way I see it," agreed Manning.

"When did they offer to pay you, in case you agreed to sell out to
them?"

"On the day they got control of the water-works. Naturally they didn't
want to pay me before, for fear I might break faith with them and buy
in the system for Mr. Seymour."

"Can't you make them put their proposition in the form of an
agreement, to be signed by all three of you?" asked Katherine.

"But mebbe they won't consent to that," put in Old Hosie.

"Mr. Manning will know how to bring them around. He can say, for
example, that, unless he has such a written agreement, they will be in
a position to drop him when once they've got what they want. He can
say that unless they consent to sign some such agreement he will go on
with his original plan. I think they'll sign."

"And if they do?" queried Old Hosie.

"If they do," said Katherine, "we'll have documentary evidence to show
Westville that those two great political enemies, Mr. Blake and Mr.
Peck, are secretly business associates--their business being a
conspiracy to wreck the water-works and defraud the city. I think such
a document would interest Westville."

"I should say it would!" exclaimed Old Hosie.

They whispered on, excitedly, hopefully; and when the two men had
departed and Katherine had gone up to her room to try to snatch a few
hours' sleep, she continued to dwell eagerly upon the plan that seemed
so near of consummation. She tossed about her bed, and heard the Court
House clock sound three, and then four. Then the heat of her
excitement began to pass away, and cold doubts began to creep into her
mind. Perhaps Blake and Peck would refuse to sign. And even if they
did sign, she began to se