"We can, if you are willing."

Blaine met her look of startled inquiry, and replied to it with a brief resume of his interview of the previous evening with Rockamore.

When he added his suggestion that the matter of the way in which her father came to his death be buried in oblivion, and the public left to believe the first report, she was silent for a time.

"But the coroner who performed the autopsy night before last," she remarked, at length, hesitatingly. "He will make the truth public, will he not?"

"Not necessarily. That depends upon you. If you wish it, nothing will ever be known."

"I think you are right, Mr. Blaine. Father's death has been avenged; neither you nor I can do more. The man who killed him has gone to his last account. Further notoriety and scandal cannot help Father, or bring him back to me. It would only cause needless suffering to those who are no more at fault than we ourselves. If the coroner can be silenced, we will keep our secret, you and I."

"Unless,"--Blaine's voice was very grave--"unless it becomes necessary to divulge it in order to get the rest of them within our grasp."

"The rest?" she looked up as if she had scarcely heard.

"Mallowe and Carlis and Paddington and the horde of lesser conspirators in their hire. We must recover your father's immense fortune, and find out how it was possible for them to divert it to their own channels.

There is Mr. Hamilton to be thought of, too--his injury, his kidnaping! If we can succeed in unraveling this mysterious tangle of events without recourse to the fact of our knowledge of the murder, well and good. If not, we must make use of whatever has come to our hand.

With the rest of the malefactors brought to justice, you can afford to be magnanimous even to the dead man who has done you the most grievous wrong of all."

"It shall be as you say--"

She broke off suddenly as her eyes, looking beyond Blaine's shoulder, fell upon a silent figure in the doorway.

"Mr. Mallowe!" she cried. "When did you come? How is it that Wilkes failed to announce you?"

"I arrived just at this moment." The smooth, unctuous tones floated out upon the strained tension of the air. "I told Wilkes I would come right up. He told me Mr. Blaine was with you, and I wish to congratulate him on his marvelous success. Surely you do not mind the liberty I took in announcing myself, my dear child?"

"Not at all," Anita responded, coldly. "To which success of Mr.

Blaine's do you refer, Mr. Mallowe?"

"Why, to his discovery of Ramon, of course." Mr. Mallowe looked from one to the other of them as if nonplused by Anita's unexpected att.i.tude. Then he continued hurriedly, with a show of enthusiasm. "It was wonderful, unprecedented! But how did Ramon come to be in Mac Alarney's retreat, and so shockingly injured?"

"The same people who ran him down the day Miss Lawton sent for him to come to her aid--the day she learned of her father's insolvency."

Blaine spoke quickly, before the girl had an opportunity to reply.

"The same people who on two other separate occasions attempted his life!"

"You cannot mean to tell me that there is some conspiracy on foot against Ramon Hamilton!" Mallowe's face was a picture of shocked amazement. "But why? He is the most exemplary of young men, quite a model in these days--"

"Because he is a man, and prepared to protect and defend to the last ounce of his strength the thing which he loved better than life itself--the thing which, but for him, stood helpless and alone, surrounded by enemies and hopelessly entangled in the meshes of a gigantic conspiracy!"

"You speak in riddles, Mr. Blaine." Mallowe's gray brows drew together.

"Riddles which will soon be answered, Mr. Mallowe. Miss Lawton's natural protector--her father--had been ruthlessly removed by--death.

Only Mr. Hamilton stood between her and the machinations of those who thought they had her in their power. Therefore, Mr. Hamilton was also removed, temporarily. Do I make myself quite clear now?"

"It is impossible, incredible! What enemies could this dear child here have made, and who could wish to harm her? Besides, am I not here? Do not I and my friends stand in _loco parentis_ to her?"

"As you doubtless are aware, one of Miss Lawton's pseudo-guardians, at least, has involuntarily resigned his wardenship," Blaine remarked.

"You refer to the sudden death last night of my a.s.sociate, Mr.

Rockamore?" Mallowe shook his head dolorously. "A terrible accident!

The news was an inexpressible shock to me! It was to comfort Miss Lawton for the blow which the loss of this devoted friend must be to her that I came to-day."

"I fancy the loss itself will be consolation enough, Mr. Mallowe. The accident was tragic, of course. It takes courage to clean a gun, sometimes--more courage, perhaps, than to spill into a gla.s.s an ingredient not usually included in a Scotch highball, let us say."

"Mr. Blaine, if you are inclined to be facetious, sir, let me tell you this is neither the time nor place for an attempt at a jest! When Miss Lawton called you in, the other day, and engaged you to search for Mr. Hamilton--"

"Oh, she didn't call me in then, Mr. Mallowe! I've been on the case from the start, all this last month, in fact, and in close touch with Miss Lawton every day."

Mallowe started back, the light of comprehension dawning swiftly in his eyes, only instantly to be veiled with a film of craftiness.

"What case?" he asked. "Ramon Hamilton has not been missing for a month."

"The case of the death of Pennington Lawton! The case of his fraudulently alleged bankruptcy! The case of the whole d.a.m.nable conspiracy to crush this girl to the earth, to impoverish her and tarnish the fair name and honored memory of her father. It's cards on the table now, Mr. Mallowe, and I'm going to win!"

"You must be mad!" exclaimed the older man. "This talk of a conspiracy is ridiculous, absurd!"

"Mr. Rockamore called me 'mad,' also, yesterday afternoon, standing just where you stand now, Mr. Mallowe." The detective met the lowering eyes squarely. "Yet he went home and--accidentally shot himself! A curiously opportune shot that! Miss Lawton's enemies depended too confidently upon her credulity in accepting without question the unsubstantiated a.s.sertion of her father's insolvency. They did not take into account the possibility that their henchman, Paddington, might fail, or turn traitor; that Mac Alarney might talk to save his own hide; that Jimmy Brunell's forgeries might be traced to their source; that the books in the office of the Recorder of Deeds might divulge interesting items to those sufficiently concerned to delve into the files of past years! You discharged your clerk on the flimsiest of excuses, Mr. Mallowe--but you did not discharge her quite soon enough. Rockamore's stenographer, and the switchboard operator in Carlis' office,--who, like your filing clerk, came from Miss Lawton's club,--were also dismissed too late. As I have said, my cards are on the table now. Are you prepared to play yours?"

For answer, Mallowe turned slowly to Anita, his face a study of pained surprise and indignation.

"My dear girl, I do not understand one word of what this person is saying, but he is either mad, or intoxicated with his success in locating Ramon, to the extent that he is endeavoring to build up a fict.i.tious case on a maze of lies. Any notoriety will bring him welcome publicity, and that is all he is looking for. I shall take immediate steps to have his incomprehensible and dangerous allegation suppressed. Such a man is a menace to the community! In the meantime, I must beg of you to dismiss him at once. Do not listen to him, do not allow him to influence you! You are only an impulsive, credulous girl, and he is using you as a mere tool for his own ends. I cannot imagine how you happened to fall into his clutches."

Anita faced him, straight and slim and tall, and her soft eyes seemed fairly to burn into his.

"I am not so credulous as you think, Mr. Mallowe. I never for a moment believed your a.s.sertion that my father died a pauper, and I took immediate steps to disprove it. Doctor Franklin was your tool, when he came to me with your message, but not I! And I shouldn't advise you to try, at this late date, to 'suppress' Mr. Blaine. Many other malefactors have attempted it, I understand, in the past, but I never heard of any of them meeting with conspicuous success. You and my other two self-appointed guardians must have been desperate indeed to have risked trying to hoodwink me with so ridiculous and vague a story as that of the loss of my father's fortune!"

"This is too much!" Mallowe stormed. "Young woman, you forget yourself! Because of the evil suggestions, the malevolent influence of this man's plausible lies, are you such an ingrate as to turn upon your only friends, your father's intimate, life-long a.s.sociates, the people who have, from disinterested motives of the purest kindness and affection, provided for you, comforted you, and shielded you from the world? Anita, I cannot believe it of you! I will leave you, now. I am positively overcome with this added shock of your ingrat.i.tude and willful deceit, coming so soon after the blow of my poor friend's death. I trust you will be in a thoroughly repentant frame of mind when next I see you.

"As for you, sir!" He turned to the immovable figure of the detective.

"I will soon show you what it means to meddle with matters which do not concern you--to pit yourself arrogantly against the biggest power in this country!"

"The biggest power in this or any other country is the power of justice." Blaine's voice rang out trenchantly. "When you and your a.s.sociates planned this desperate _coup_, it was as a last resort. You had involved yourselves too deeply; you had gone too far to retrace your steps. You were forced to go on forward--and now your path is closed with bars of iron!"

"I will not remain here any longer to be insulted! Miss Lawton, I shall never cross the threshold of this house again--this house, which only by my charity you have been suffered to remain in--until you apologize for the disgraceful scene here this morning. I can only hope that you will soon come to your senses!"

As he strode indignantly from the room, Anita turned anxiously to Henry Blaine.

"Oh, what will he do?" she whispered. "He is really a power, a money-power, you know, Mr. Blaine! Where will he go now?"

"Straight to his _confrere_ Carlis, and tell him that the game is up."

The detective spoke with brisk confidence. "He'll be tailed by my men, anyway, so we shall soon have a report. Don't see anyone, on any pretext whatsoever, and don't leave the house, Miss Lawton. I will instruct Wilkes on my way out, that you are to be at home to no one. I must be getting back to my office now. If I am not mistaken, I shall receive a visit without unnecessary delay from my old friend Timothy Carlis, and I wouldn't miss it for the world!"

Blaine's prediction proved to have been well founded. Scarcely an hour pa.s.sed, and he was deep in the study of some of his earlier notes on the case, when all at once a hubbub arose in his outer office. Usually quiet and well-ordered, its customary stillness was broken by a confused, expostulatory murmur of voices, above which rose a strident, angry bellow, like that of a maddened wild beast. Then a chair was violently overturned; the sudden sharp sound of a scuffle came to the detective's listening ears; and the door was dashed open with a jar which made the ma.s.sive inkstand upon the desk quiver.

Timothy Carlis stood upon the threshold--Timothy Carlis, his face empurpled, the great veins upon his low-slanting forehead standing out like whipcords, his huge, spatulate hands clenched, his narrow, slit eyes gleaming murderously.

"So you're here, after all!" he roared. "Those d--d fools out there tried to give me the wrong steer, but I was wise to 'em. You buffaloed Rockamore, and that senile old idiot, Mallowe, but you can't bluff me!

I came here to see you, and I usually get what I go after!"