it is at his own request that he is now ignorant
of the combination. No one knows that but Wheatcroft and I. The letters
themselves I wrote myself, and copied myself, and put them myself in
the envelopes I directed myself. I don't recall mailing them myself,
but I may have done that too. So you see that there can't be any
foundation for your belief, Wheatcroft, that somebody had access to our
bids."

"I can't believe anything else!" cried Wheatcroft, impulsively. "I
don't know how it was done--I'm not a detective--but it was done
somehow. And if it was done, it was done by somebody! And what I'd like
to do is to catch that somebody in the act--that's all! I'd make it hot
for him!"

"You would like to have him out at the Ramapo Works," said Paul,
smiling at the little man's violence, "and put him under the
steam-hammer?"

"Yes, I would," responded Mr. Wheatcroft. "I would indeed! Putting a
man under a steam-hammer may seem a cruel punishment, but I think it
would cure the fellow of any taste for prying into our business in the
future."

"I think it would get him out of the habit of living," the elder
Whittier said, as the tall clock in the corner struck one. "But don't
let's be so brutal. Let's go to lunch and talk the matter over quietly.
I don't agree with your suspicion, Wheatcroft, but there may be
something in it."

Five minutes later Mr. Whittier, Mr. Wheatcroft, and the only son of
the senior partner left the glass-framed private office, and, walking
leisurely through the long store, passed into the street.

They did not notice that the old book-keeper, Major Van Zandt, whose
high desk was so placed that he could overlook the private office, had
been watching them ever since the messenger had delivered the despatch.
He could not read the telegram, he could not hear the comments, but he
could see every movement and every gesture and every expression. He
gazed from one speaker to the other almost as though he were able to
follow the course of the discussion; and when the three members of the
firm walked past his desk, he found himself staring at them as if in a
vain effort to read on their faces the secret of the course of action
they had resolved upon.

II

After luncheon, as it happened, both the senior and the junior partner
of Whittier, Wheatcroft & Co. had to attend meetings, and they went
their several ways, leaving Paul to return to the office alone.

When he came opposite to the house which b