for the coin, eh? What did you find?"

The informant actually blushed. "You aren't accusing us, Mr. Gard!"

"Accusing nothing. I know a few things, Brencherly, remember. Baker
Allen told me your office held him up good and plenty to turn in a
different report when his wife employed you, and you 'got the goods on
him.' Now, don't give me any bluff. I want facts, and I pay you for
them, don't I? Well, when you got that story, you looked it up hard,
didn't you?"

Brencherly, thoroughly cowed, nodded assent. "But we couldn't get a line
on it anywhere. If there were any proofs, somebody else had them--that's
all."

"U'm!" said Marcus, and sat a moment silent. When he spoke again it was
with an apparent frankness that would have deceived the devil himself.
"See here, I'll tell you my reason for all this, so perhaps you can
answer more intelligently. Martin Marteen was a friend of mine, and I'm
interested in his little daughter, who has just come out. Theodore Mahr
is attentive to her, and I'm not keen about it, and what you tell me
about his father doesn't make me any happier. What sort of a woman is
Mrs. Marteen--from your point of view? Of course I know her well
socially, but what's her rating with you?"

"Ai, sir," Brencherly answered promptly. "Exceptionally fine woman--very
intelligent. I should say that, with a word from you, she ought to be
able to handle the situation, and any girl living. But the boy's all
right, Mr. Gard, even if Mahr isn't. And after all, there may not be a
word of truth in that romance I spun to you. We couldn't land a thing.