it!" indorsed Crowley, swinging his arm and flattening
his thick palm in front of the chief. "I claim the credit."

Crowley had become defiantly intrepid, facing that manner of man who was
so manifestly cowed and muddled. The operative was back in his
encouraging environment of the city; he remembered the thrust of those
prongs of fingers on his head when he was obliged to dissemble and was
shamed in the north country. He was holding his grudge. And he was
assiduously backing up the claims he had made to his chief. "The girl
you're talking about had nothing to do with pulling you off the job. She
was double-crossing our agency."

"Think so?" queried Latisan.

"I know it. But I don't know what fool notion got into her up there. I
have told Mr. Mern all about it. I'm the boy who woke you up!"

"Do you agree, Latisan?" asked Mern, brusquely.

"I'm not thinking clearly, sir. But if this man is right, I ought to
apologize to her."

"She is no longer employed by us, but we'll try to locate her." Mern was
willing to come out in front of Crowley with that information; the
situation did seem to have cleared up! "Hang around town. Come in
again."

Latisan dragged himself up from his chair.

Then Crowley of the single-track mind--bull-headed blunderer--went on to
his undoing. "I'm sorry it has come about that you've got to fire her,
Chief. I know what a lot she was worth to you here, as long as she kept
to her own job."

"We'll let it rest," said Mern, warningly. He remembered that he had not
posted Crowley on the fact that the sobriquet "Miss Patsy Jones" still
hid the identity of the girl where Latisan was concerned.

"All right! That suits me, Chief, so long as I get the credit. I'll shut
up, saying only that I'm sorry for Miss Lida Kennard."

Latisan had been moving slowly toward the door, aware that the
conversation between the two pertained to their own affairs and that he
was excluded.

He halted and swung around when he heard the name of Lida Kennard. The
torpor of idleness and woeful ponderings had numbed his wits. The name
of Lida seemed to have been dragged into the affair by Crowley. Ward did
not understand how she could be involved in the matter. He put that
thought into a question which he stammered.

Mern, knowing nothing about his secretary's lineage, resenting her
secrecy and methods which he had not been able to penetrate, was not in
a mood to shield her any longer. "It's the same girl, Latisan.