"What was in the book--mostly, do you imagine?" asked Craig, still
imperturbable.

Carton shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, almost anything. For instance,
you know, Dorgan has just put through a new scheme of city
planning--with the able assistance of some theoretical reformers.
That will be a big piece of real estate graft, unless I am
mistaken. Langhorne and his crowd know it. They don't want to be
frozen out."

As they talked, I had been revolving the thing over in my head.
Dorgan's little parties, as reported privately among the men on
the Star whom I knew, were notorious. The more I considered, the
more possible phases of the problem I thought of. It was not even
impossible that in some way it might bear on the Betty Blackwell
case.

"Do you think Dorgan and Murtha are hunting the book as anxiously
as--some others?" I ventured.

"You have heard of the character of some of those dinners?"
answered Carton by asking another question, then went on: "Why,
Dorgan has had some of our leading lawyers, financiers, and
legislators there. He usually surrounds them with brilliant,
clever women, as unscrupulous as himself, and--well--you can
imagine the result. Poor little Mrs. Ogleby," he added
sympathetically. "They could twist her any way they chose for
their purposes."

My own impression had been that Mrs. Ogleby was better able to