He drew back to watch the effect on the aged inventor. Could it be that
Brent was lying? Or was it fear? Could it be that at last his seared
conscience was troubling him?

At that exact moment, up-stairs, in a private laboratory in the house,
sat a young man at a desk--a handsome, strong-faced, clean-cut chap. All
about him were the scientific instruments which he used to test
inventions offered to Brent.

A look of intent eagerness passed over his face. For Quentin Locke was
not testing any of Brent's patents just now. Over his head he had the
receivers of a dictagraph.

It was a strange act for one so recently employed as manager of Brent's
private laboratory. Yet such a man must have had his reasons.

One who was interested might have followed the wire from the
dictagraph-box in the top drawer of the desk down the leg of the desk,
through the very walls to the huge chandelier in the library below,
where, in the ornamented brass-work, reposed a small black disk about
the size of a watch. It was the receiving-end of the dictagraph.

Suddenly the young man's face broke out into a smile and without
thinking he stopped writing what the little mechanical eavesdropper was
conveying him from below. He listened intently as he heard a silvery
laugh over the wire.

"Oh, I didn't know you were busy. I thought these flowers--Well, never
mind. I'll leave them, anyway."