"Thanks, perhaps you would be so kind as not to mention my name to her,"
said Hugh.

"Something up!" Slotman thought. He was an eminently suspicious man; he
suspected everyone, and more particularly all those who were in his pay.
He suspected his clerks of wasting their time--his time, the time he
paid for. He suspected them of filching the petty cash, stealing the
postage stamps, cheating him and getting the better of him in some way,
and in order to keep a watch on them he had riddled his suite of offices
with peepholes, listening holes, and spyholes in every unlikely corner.

A small waiting office divided his private apartment from the General
Office, and peepholes cunningly contrived permitted anyone to hear and
see all that passed in the General Office, and in his own office too.

He found a young clerk in the waiting office, and sent him to Miss
Meredyth.

"Ask Miss Meredyth to go to my office at once, not through this way, and
then you remain in the General Office till I send for you," said
Slotman.

This gave him the advantage he wanted. He locked both doors leading into
the waiting office, and took up his position at the spyhole that gave
him command of his own office.

He could see his visitor plainly. Hugh Alston was pacing the room
slowly, his hands behind his back, his face wearing a look of worry.
Slotman saw him pause and turn expectantly to the door at the far end of