"And the letter--you never saw it?" Morrow asked eagerly, his detective instinct now thoroughly aroused. "You don't know what that envelope postmarked 'Brooklyn' contained?"

"Oh, but I do!" Emily exclaimed. "Father had thrust it in the stove, but the fire had gone out, without his noticing it. I found it the next morning, when I raked down the ashes."

"You--read it?" Morrow carefully steadied his voice.

"No," she shook her head, with a faint smile. "That's the queer part of it all. No one could have read it--no one who did not hold the key to it, I mean. It was written in some secret code or cipher, with oddly shaped figures instead of letters; dots and cubes and triangles. I never saw anything like it before. I couldn't understand why anyone should send such a funny message to my father, instead of writing it out properly."

"What did you do with the letter--did you destroy it?" This time the detective made no effort to control the eagerness in his tones, but the girl was so absorbed in her problem that she was oblivious to all else.

"I suppose I should have, but I didn't. I knew that it was what my father had intended, yet somehow I felt that it might prove useful in the future--that I might even be helping Father by keeping it, against his own judgment. The envelope was partially scorched by the hot ashes, but the inside sheet remained untouched. I hid the letter behind the mirror on my dresser, and sometimes, when I have been quite alone, I took it out and tried to solve it, but I couldn't. I never was good at puzzles when I was little, and I suppose I lack that deductive quality now. I was ashamed, too: it seemed so like prying into things which didn't concern me, which my father didn't wish me to know; still, I was only doing it to try to help him."

Morrow winced, and drew a long breath. Then resolutely he plunged into the task before him.

"Emily, don't think that I want to pry, either, but if I am to help you I must see that letter. If you trust me and believe in my friendship, let me see it. Perhaps I may be able to discover the key in the first word or two, and then you can decipher it for yourself.

You understand, I don't wish you to show it to me unless you really have confidence in me, unless you are sure that there is nothing in it which one who has your welfare and peace of mind at heart should not see."

He waited for her reply with a suffocating feeling as if a hand were clutching at his throat. A hot wave of shame, of fierce repugnance and self-contempt at the role he was forced to play, surged up within him, but he could not go back now. The die was cast.

She looked at him--a long, searching look, her childlike eyes dark with troubled indecision. At length they cleared slowly and she smiled, a faint, pathetic smile, which wrung his heart. Then she rose without a word, and left the room.

It seemed to him that an interminable period of time pa.s.sed before he heard her light, returning footsteps descending the stairs. A wild desire to flee a.s.sailed him--to efface himself before her innocent confidence was betrayed.

Emily Brunell came straight to him, and placed the letter in his hands.

"There can be nothing in this letter which could harm my father, if all the world read it," she said simply. "He is good and true; he has not an enemy on earth. It can be only a private business communication, at the most. My father's life is an open book; no discredit could come to him. Yet if there was anything in the cryptic message written here which others, not knowing him as I do, might misjudge, I am not afraid that you will. You see, I do believe in your friendship, Mr. Morrow; I am proving my faith in you."

CHAPTER XII

THE CIPHER

It was a haggard, heavy-eyed young man who presented himself at Henry Blaine's office, early the next morning, with his report. The detective made no comment upon his subordinate's changed appearance and manner, but eyed him keenly as with dogged determination Guy Morrow told his story through to the end.

"The letter--the cipher letter!" Blaine demanded, curtly, when the operative paused at length. "You have it with you?"

Morrow drew a deep breath and unconsciously he squared his shoulders.

"No, sir," he responded, his voice significantly steady and controlled.

"Where is it?"

"I gave it back to her--to Miss Brunell."

"What! Then you solved it?" the detective leaned forward suddenly, the level gaze from beneath his close-drawn brows seeming to pierce the younger man's impa.s.sivity.

"No, sir. It was a cryptogram, of course--an arrangement of cabalistic signs instead of letters, but I could make nothing of it. The message, whatever it is, would take hours of careful study to decipher; and even then, without the key, one might fail. I have seen nothing quite like it, in all my experience."

"And you gave it back to her!" Blaine exclaimed, with well-simulated incredulity. "You actually had the letter in your hands, and relinquished it? In heaven's name, why?"

"Miss Brunell had shown it to me in confidence. It was her property, and she trusted me. Since I was unable to aid her in solving it, I returned it to her. The chances are that it is, as she said, a matter of private business between her father and another man, and it is probably entirely dissociated from this investigation."

"You're not paid, Morrow, to form opinions of your own, or decide the ethics, social or moral, of a case you're put on; you're paid to obey instructions, collect data and obtain whatever evidence there may be.

Remember that. Confidence or no confidence, girl or no girl, you go back and get that letter! I don't care what means you use, short of actual murder; that cipher's got to be in my hands before midnight.

Understand?"

"Yes, sir, I understand." Morrow rose slowly, and faced his chief.

"I'm sorry, but I cannot do it."

"You can't? That's the first time I ever heard that word from your lips, Guy." Henry Blaine shook his head sadly, affecting not to notice his operative's rising emotion.

"I mean that I won't, sir. I'm sorry to appear insubordinate, but I've got to refuse--I simply must. I've never shirked a duty before, as I think you will admit, Mr. Blaine. I have always carried out the missions you entrusted to me to the best of my ability, no matter what the odds against me, and in this case I have gone ahead conscientiously up to the present moment, but I won't proceed with it any further."

"What are you afraid of--Jimmy Brunell?" asked the detective, significantly.

The insult brought a deep flush to Morrow's cheek, but he controlled himself.

"No, sir," he responded, quietly. "I'm not going to betray the trust that girl has reposed in me."

"How about the trust another girl has placed in me--and through me, in you?" Henry Blaine rose also, and gazed levelly into his operative's eyes. "What of Anita Lawton? Have you considered her? I ought to dismiss you, Guy, at this moment, and I would if it were anyone else, but I can't allow you to fly off at a tangent, and ruin your whole career. Why should you put this girl, Emily Brunell, before everything in the world--your duty to Miss Lawton, to me, to yourself?"

"She trusted me," returned Morrow, with grim persistence.

"So did Henrietta Goodwin, in the case of Mrs. Derwenter's diamonds; so did the little manicure, in the Verdun blackmail affair; so did Anne Richardson, in the Balazzi kidnaping mystery. You made love to all of them, and got their confessions, and if your scruples and remorse kept you awake nights afterward, you certainly didn't show any effect of it. What difference does it make in this case?"

"Just this difference, Mr. Blaine"--Morrow's words came with a rush, as if he was glad, now that the issue had been raised, to meet it squarely--"I love Emily Brunell. Whatever her father is, or has done, she is guiltless of any complicity, and I can't stand by and see her suffer, much less be the one to precipitate her grief by bringing her father to justice. I told you the truth when I said that the cipher letter was an enigma to me. I could not solve the cryptogram, nor will I be the means of bringing it to the hands of those who might solve it. I don't want any further connection with the case; in fact, sir, I want to get out of the sleuth game altogether. It's a dirty business, at best, and it leaves a bad taste in one's mouth, and many a black spot in one's memory. I realize how petty and sordid and treacherous and generally despicable the whole game is, and I'm through!"

"Through?" Henry Blaine smiled his quiet, slow, illuminating smile, and walking around the table, laid his hand on Morrow's shoulder.

"Why, boy, you haven't even commenced. Detective work is 'petty,' you said? 'Petty' because we take every case, no matter how insignificant, if it can right a wrong? You call our profession 'sordid,' because we accept pay for the work of our brains and bodies! Why should we not?

Are we treacherous, because we meet malefactors, and fight them with their own weapons? And what is there that is 'generally despicable'

about a calling which betters mankind, which protects the innocent, and brings the guilty to justice?"

Morrow shook his head slowly, as if incapable of speech, but it was evident that he was listening, and Blaine, after a moment's pause, followed up his advantage.

"You say that you love Miss Brunell, Guy, and because of that, you will have nothing further to do with an investigation which points primarily to her father as an accomplice in the crime. Do you realize that if you throw over the case now, I shall be compelled to put another operative on the trail, with all the information at his disposal which you have detailed to me? You may be sure the man I have in mind will have no sentimental scruples against pushing the matter to the end, without regard for the cost to either Jimmy Brunell or his daughter. Naturally, being in love with the girl, her interests are paramount with you. I, too, desire heartily to do nothing to cause her anxiety or grief. Remember that I have daughters of my own. As I have told you, I firmly believe that the old forger is merely a helpless tool in this affair, but my duty demands that I obtain the whole truth. If you repudiate the case now, give up your career, and go to work single-handed to attempt to protect her and her father by thwarting my investigation, you will be doing her the greatest injury in your power. The only way to help them both is to do all that you can to discover the real facts in the case. When we have succeeded in that, we shall undoubtedly find a way to shield old Jimmy from the brunt of the blame.

"Don't forget the big interests, political and munic.i.p.al, at work in this conspiracy. They would not hesitate to try to make the old offender a scape-goat, and you know what sort of treatment he would receive in the hands of the police. Play the game, Guy; stick to the job. I'm not asking this of you for my own investigation. I have a dozen, a score of operatives who could each handle the branch you are working up just as well as you. I ask it for the sake of your career, for the girl herself, and her father. I tell you that instead of incriminating old Jimmy, you may be the means of ultimately saving him.--Go back to Emily Brunell now, get that letter from her by hook or crook, and bring it to me."

The detective paused at length and waited for his answer. It was long in coming. Guy Morrow stood leaning against his desk, his brows drawn down in a troubled frown. Blaine watched the outward signs of his mental struggle warily, but made no further plea. At last the young operative raised his head, his eyes clear and resolute, and held out his hand.

"I will, sir! Thank you for giving me another chance. I do love the girl, and I want to help her more than anything else in the world, but I'll play the game fairly. You are right, of course. I can be of more a.s.sistance to her on the inside than working in the dark, and it would be better for everyone concerned if the truth could be brought to light. I'll get the letter, and bring it to you to-night."

Morrow was waiting at the foot of the subway stairs that evening when Emily appeared. The crisp, cold air had brought a brilliant flush to her usually pale cheeks, and her sparkling eyes softened with tender surprise and happiness when they rested on him. He thought that she had never appeared more lovely, and as they started homeward his hand tightened upon her arm with an air of unconscious possession and pride which she did not resent.

"May I come over after supper?" he asked, softly, as they paused at her gate. "I have something to tell you--to ask you."