To go to Ives for anything was heartily distasteful to him. But this was a necessity. He cautiously questioned the unofficial factotum of his employer. Had Ives heard anything of a projected attack on him in The Searchlight? Why, yes; Ives had (naturally, since it was he and not Babson who had furnished the material). In fact, he had an underground wire into the office of that weekly of spice and scurrility which might be tapped to oblige a friend.

Banneker winced at the characterization, but confessed that he would be appreciative of any information. In three days a galley proof of the paragraph was in his hands. It confirmed his angriest fears. Publication of it would smear Io's name with scandal, and, by consequence, direct the leering gaze of the world upon their love.

"What is this; blackmail?" he asked Ives.

"Might be."

"Who wrote it?"

"Reads like the old buzzard's own style."

"I'll go and see him," said Banneker, half to himself.

"You can go, but I don't think you'll see him." Ives set forth in detail the venerable editor's procedure as to troublesome callers. It was specific and curious. Foreseeing that he would probably have to fight with his opponent's weapons, Banneker sought out Russell Edmonds and asked for all the information regarding The Searchlight and its proprietor-editor in the veteran's possession. Edmonds had a fund of it.

"But it won't smoke him out," he said. "That skunk lives in a deep hole."

"If I can't smoke him out, I'll blast him out," declared Banneker, and set himself to the composition of an editorial which consumed the remainder of the working day.

With a typed copy in his pocket, he called, a little before noon, at the office of The Searchlight and sent in his card to Major Bussey. The Major was not in. When was he expected? As for that, there was no telling; he was quite irregular. Very well, Mr. Banneker would wait. Oh, that was quite useless; was it about something in the magazine; wouldn't one of the other editors do? Without awaiting an answer, the anemic and shrewd-faced office girl who put the questions disappeared, and presently returned, followed by a tailor-made woman of thirty-odd, with a delicate, secret-keeping mouth and heavy-lidded, deep-hued eyes, altogether a seductive figure. She smiled confidently up at Banneker.

"I've always wanted so much to meet you," she disclosed, giving him a quick, gentle hand pressure. "So has Major Bussey. Too bad he's out of town. Did you want to see him personally?"

"Quite personally." Banneker returned her smile with one even more friendly and confiding.

"Wouldn't I do? Come into my office, won't you? I represent him in some things."

"Not in this one, I hope," he replied, following her to an inner room.

"It is about a paragraph not yet published, which might be misconstrued."

"Oh, I don't think any one could possibly misconstrue it," she retorted, with a flash of wicked mirth.

"You know the paragraph to which I refer, then."

"I wrote it."

Banneker regarded her with grave and appreciative urbanity. All was going precisely as Ely Ives had prognosticated; the denial of the presence of the editor; the appearance of this alluring brunette as whipping-girl to assume the burden of his offenses with the calm impunity of her sex and charm.

"Congratulations," he said. "It is very clever."

"It's quite true, isn't it?" she returned innocently.

"As authentic, let us say, as your authorship of the paragraph."

"You don't think I wrote it? What object should I have in trying to deceive you?"

"What, indeed! By the way, what is Major Bussey's price?"

"Oh, Mr. Banneker!" Was it sheer delight in deviltry, or amusement at his direct and unstrategic method that sparkled in her face. "You surely don't credit the silly stories of--well, blackmail, about us!"

"It might be money," he reflected. "But, on the whole, I think it's something else. Something he wants from The Patriot, perhaps. Immunity?

Would that be it? Not that I mean, necessarily, to deal."

"What is your proposition?" she asked confidentially.

"How can I advance one when I don't know what your principal wants?"

"The paragraph was written in good faith," she asserted.

"And could be withdrawn in equal good faith?"

Her laugh was silvery clear. "Very possibly. Under proper representations."

"Then don't you think I'd better deal direct with the Major?"

She studied his face. "Yes," she began, and instantly refuted herself.

"No. I don't trust you. There's trouble under that smooth smile of yours."

"But _you're_ not afraid of me, surely," said Banneker. He had found out one important point; her manner when she said "Yes" indicated that the proprietor was in the building. Now he continued: "Are you?"

"I don't know. I think I am." There was a little catch in her breath. "I think you'd be dangerous to any woman."

Banneker, his eyes fixed on hers, played for time and a further lead with a banality. "You're pleased to flatter me."

"Aren't you pleased to be flattered?" she returned provocatively.

He put his hand on her wrist. She swayed to him with a slow, facile yielding. He caught her other wrist, and the grip of his two hands seemed to bite into the bone.

"So you're _that_ kind, too, are you!" he sneered, holding her eyes as cruelly as he had clutched her wrists. "Keep quiet! Now, you're to do as I tell you."

(Ely Ives, in describing the watchwoman at the portals of scandal, had told him that she was susceptible to a properly timed bluff. "A woman she had slandered once stabbed her; since then you can get her nerve by a quick attack. Treat her rough.")

She stared at him, fearfully, half-hypnotized.

"Is that the door leading to Bussey's office? Don't speak! Nod."

Dumb and stricken, she obeyed.

"I'm going there. Don't you dare make a movement or a noise. If you do--I'll come back."

Shifting his grasp, he caught her up and with easy power tossed her upon a broad divan. From its springy surface she shot up, as it seemed to him, halfway to the ceiling, rigid and staring, a ludicrous simulacrum of a glassy-eyed doll. He heard the protesting "ping!" and "berr-rr-rr"

of a broken spring as she fell back. The traverse of a narrow hallway and a turn through a half-open door took him into the presence of bearded benevolence making notes at a desk.

"How did you get here? And who the devil are you?" demanded the guiding genius of The Searchlight, looking up irritably. He raised his voice.

"Con!" he called.

From a side room appeared a thick, heavy-shouldered man with a feral countenance, who slouched aggressively forward, as the intruder announced himself.

"My name is Banneker."