"To find out if you had any news you were willing to tell me yet, sir--of Emily?"

"Yes." The detective's slow smile was quizzical. "The most significant news in the world."

"You've discovered their destination--hers and her father's?" the young operative cried eagerly. "You traced their taxi, of course!"

"No."

"Then what is it?"

"Just that, Guy--that I haven't been able to trace the taxicab in which they left their house. Think it over. Report to me when you've got anything definite to tell me."

With a curt nod Blaine dismissed him, but he glanced after the dejected, retreating figure with a very kindly, affectionate light in his fatherly eyes. It was dusk when he was aroused from a deep study of his carefully annotated resume of the case by the excited jangle of the telephone bell, to hear Guy Morrow's no less excited but joyous voice at the other end of the wire.

"I've found her! I've found Emily! She loves me! She does! I made her listen, and she understands everything! She don't mind a bit about my hounding her father down, because she sees how it all had to be, and the old man's a regular brick about it!"

"Where--"

"It was the kitten did it--that blessed Caliban! And think of it, sir; I've always hated cats, ever since I was a kid! Emily says--"

"But how--"

"Maybe if the hall had been lighted--but Mrs. Quinlan's got that parsimony peculiar to all landladies--and I trod on its tail, and it was all up!"

"Morrow, are you a driveling idiot, or an operative? Are you reporting, or exploding? If you called me up to tell me that you trod on the tail of your landlady's parsimony, you don't need a job in a detective bureau; you need a lunacy commission!" Blaine's voice was vexed, but little smiling lines crinkled at the corners of his eyes.

"I beg your pardon, sir; I am almost crazy, I think--with happiness.

I've found Mr. Jimmy Brunell and his daughter. They are the two mysterious boarders whom Mrs. Quinlan has been shielding all this time, and I never even suspected it! It was Jimmy Brunell who fired at me that night of the day they disappeared. He didn't recognize me, and thought I was one of his enemies--one of Paddington's men, like young Charley Pennold.

"You remember, I told you I found the kitten in the deserted house and brought it home for Mrs. Quinlan to take care of? Well, she never lights the gas until the very last minute, and late this afternoon, about half an hour ago, I was stumbling along the second-floor hallway to my room in the dark, when I stepped on the kitten. It yelled like mad, and Emily heard it from her room above. Forgetting caution and everything else, she opened the door and called it!

"Of course, when I heard her voice, I was upstairs two steps at a time, with the cat under my arm clawing like a vixen. She was perfectly freezing at first--not the cat; it's a he; I mean Emily. But after I explained that when I'd gotten to care for her I only tried to help her, she--oh, well, I'm going to let her tell you herself, if you're willing, sir! I'll bring them both down to you now, if you say so, she and her father. Jimmy Brunell's more than anxious to see you; he wants to make a clean breast of the whole affair--tell all he knows about the case; and I think what he's got to say will astonish you and finish the whole thing--crack that nut you were talking to me about this afternoon, provide the link in the chain, the crevice in the crime cube! May I bring them?"

Blaine acquiesced, and after issuing his orders to the subordinates about him, waited in a fever of impatience which he could scarcely control, and which, had he stopped to think of it, would have astonished him beyond measure. That he--who had daily, almost hourly, awaited unmoved the appearance of men famous and infamous, ill.u.s.trious and obscure, should so agitatedly view the coming of this old offender, was incomprehensible.

Yet although he had really learned little that was conclusive from Guy's somewhat incoherent account, he felt, in common with his young operative, that the crux of the matter lay here, to his hand, that from the lips of this old ex-convict would fall the magic word which would open to him the inner door of this mystery of mysteries--which would prove, as the golden key of truth, absolute and una.s.sailable.

After what seemed an incredibly long period of suspense, the door opened and Marsh ushered them in--Morrow, his face wreathed in triumph and smiles; a brown-haired, serene-eyed girl whom Blaine remembered from his memorable interview with her at the Anita Lawton Club; and a tall, grizzled, smooth-shaven man, who held himself proudly erect, as if the weight of years had fallen from his shoulders.

"Yes, sir, I'm Brunell," the latter announced, when the incidental salutations were over, "--Jimmy Brunell, the forger. I've lived straight, and tried to keep the truth from my little girl, for her own sake, but perhaps it is better as it is. She knows everything now, and has forgiven much, because she's a woman like her mother, G.o.d bless her! I've come of my own free will, to tell you all you want to know, and prove it, too!"

"Sit down, all of you. Brunell, you forged the signature to the mortgage on Pennington Lawton's home, at Paddington's instigation?"

"Yes, sir. And the signature on the note given for the loan from Moore, and the whole letter supposed to be from Mr. Lawton to Mallowe, asking him to procure that loan for him, and all the other crooked business which helped sweep Mr. Lawton's fortune away. But I didn't understand how big the job was, nor just what they were trying to put over, or I wouldn't have done it. I wish to heaven I hadn't, now, but it's too late for that; I can only do what's left me to help repair the damage. I wish I'd taken the consequences Paddington threatened me with, through Charley Pennold--curse them both!

"For it wasn't because of the money I did it, sir, although what they offered me was a small fortune, and would have been a mighty hard temptation in the old days. It was because if I refused they were going to strike at me through my little girl, the one thing on earth I've got left to love! They were going to have me sent up on an old score which no one else even had suspected I'd been mixed up in. I didn't know--until just now when this young friend here, Mr. Morrow, told me--that it had been outlawed long years ago, and I can see that they counted on my not knowing. How they found out about it, anyway, is a mystery to me, but that Paddington is the devil himself! However, if I didn't do the trick for them, they'd have me convicted, and once out of the way, my little girl would be helpless in their hands. They talked of sweatshops, and worse--"

The old man broke down, and shuddering, covered his face with his thin fingers. But in a moment, before the pitying, outstretched hand of his daughter could reach his shoulder, he had regained control of himself, and resumed:

"I did what they asked of me--all they asked. But I was suspicious, not only because they didn't take me fully into their confidence, but because I knew Paddington and his breed; and also, Miss Lawton had been kind to my little girl. If they meant any harm to Pennington Lawton's daughter, or if their scheme, whatever kind of a hold-up it was, failed to pan out as they expected, and they tried to make me the scape-goat--well, I meant to protect myself and Lawton. My word would have to be proof against theirs that they forced me into what I did, but I could fix it so that I could prove to anybody, without any doubt, that Lawton never wrote that note to Mallowe from Long Bay about that loan two years ago, and that would sort of substantiate my word that the signatures weren't his, either."

"How could you prove such a thing?" Blaine leaned forward tensely.

"Young Morrow, here, tells me that you've got that note--the note asking Mallowe to arrange the loan for Lawton. Will you get it, please, sir? I don't want to see it; I want you to read it to me, and then I'll tell you something about it. They thought they were clever, the rascals, but I fooled them at their own game! I cut out the words from a bundle of Lawton's old letters which they gave me, and I manufactured the note, all right. I did it, word for word, just like they wanted me to--but I put my _own private mark_ on it, that they couldn't discover, so that I could prove anywhere, any time, that it was a forgery!"

In a concealed fever of excitement, the detective produced the fateful note from his private file.

"That looks like it!" chuckled old Jimmy. "It's dated August sixteenth, nineteen hundred and twelve, isn't it? Now, sir, will you read it out loud, please?"

Blaine unfolded the single sheet of hotel note-paper, and looked once more at the following message:

My Dear Mallowe:

Kindly regard this letter as strictly confidential. I desire to negotiate a private loan immediately, for a considerable amount,--three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, in fact,--but for obvious reasons, which you, as a man of discretion and financial astuteness second to none in this country, will readily understand, a public a.s.sumption of it by me would be disastrous to a degree, under the prevailing conditions. Ask Moore if he can arrange the matter for me, but feel him out tentatively first. If he does not see his way clear to it, let me know without delay, and I will come to Illington and confer with you.

I am prepared, of course, to give him my personal note for same, but do not desire any direct dealings with him. In fact, it would be exceedingly dangerous to my interests if he ever mentioned it to me personally, even when he fancied himself alone with me. Impress this upon him.

I will pay far above the legal rate of interest, of course. You can arrange this with him.

I will go into the whole matter of this contingency confidentially with you when I see you. In the meantime, I know that I can rely upon you.

Awaiting the earliest possible reply, and thanking you for the interest I know you will take in this affair,

Sincerely, your friend,

Pennington Lawton.

After glancing at it a moment Blaine read the letter aloud in a calm, unemotional voice which gave no hint of the tumult within him. He had scarcely finished when Jimmy Brunell, greatly excited, interrupted triumphantly:

"That's it! That's the note! Don't see anything phony about it, do you, sir? Neither did they! Now, leave out the 'My dear Mallowe,' and beginning with the next as the first line, count down five lines. The last letter of the last word on that line is _f_, _isn't it_? Omit a line and take the last letter of the next, and so on for four letters--that is, the last words of the four alternate lines beginning with the fifth from the top are: _of_, _a_, _ask_, and _see_, and the last letters of those four spell a word. That word is _fake_, and so is the note, and the whole infernal business! _Fake_, from beginning to end! I put my mark on it, sir, so it could be known for what it is, in case of need. Now the need has come."

"By Jove, so it is!" Guy Morrow cried, unable to restrain himself longer. "You're a wonder, Mr. Brunell!"

"You have rendered us a greater service than you know," supplemented Blaine, the while his pulses throbbed in time to his leaping heart.

The crevice! The rift in the criminal's almost perfected scheme, into which he had succeeded in inserting the little silver probe of his specialized knowledge, and disclosed to a gaping world the truth! He had found it at last, and his work was all but done.

"But what's to happen to me now?" The exultation had died out of his voice, and Jimmy Brunell looked suddenly pinched and gray and tired, and very, very old. "I don't care much what happens to me, but my daughter--Emily--"

"I'll take care of her, whatever happens!" Guy's heart was in his buoyant voice. "But you'll be all right. Don't you worry! Haven't you got Mr. Blaine on your side?"

"I'll try to see that you don't suffer for your enforced share in the Lawton conspiracy, Brunell. It seems to me that you've already gone through trouble enough on that score, great as was the damage you half-unwittingly wrought," Blaine remarked, rea.s.suringly--adding: "But why didn't you come forward before, and give your testimony?"

"There wasn't any court action," the old man returned, hesitatingly.

"And besides, I was afraid to come forward and tell what I knew, because of Emily. I would have done it, though, as soon as I learned they had robbed Miss Lawton of everything. I wasn't sure of that, you see."

"One thing more!" Blaine pressed the bell which would summon his secretary. "Why, if you had reformed, did you keep in your possession all these years your forging apparatus?"

"I had it taken care of for me while I served my term, meaning to use it again when I came out. I was bitter and revengeful, and I meant to do everybody up brown that I could. But when I was free and found my--my wife had gone and left me Emily, it seemed like a hostage from her gentle spirit given to the world, that I wouldn't do any more wrong. I kept the plant because I didn't know how to dispose of it so no one else could use it, and as the years went by, I got more and more scared at the thought of it.

"I was afraid both ways--afraid it would be discovered, but more afraid I'd be found out if I tried to get rid of it. So I buried it in the cellar of my little shop and did my level best to forget it. I'd almost succeeded when, G.o.d knows how, Paddington found me. You know the rest."