"Perfectly," I said. "I think I see the whole thing."

The King of the Street looked at me with a grim smile.

"Maybe you do, but all the same you'd better keep your money out of
this little deal unless you can spare it as well as not. Well, get back
to your room. You've got your check-book all right?"

Alone once more I was in despair of unraveling the tangle in which I
was involved. I felt convinced that Doddridge Knapp was the mover in
the plots that sought my life. He had, I felt sure, believed me dead,
and was startled into fear at my unheralded appearance. Yet why should
he trust me with his business? I could not doubt that the buying and
selling he had given to my care were important. I knew nothing about
the price of stocks but I was sure that the orders he had given me
involved many thousands of dollars. Yet it might be--the thought struck
home to me--that the credit had not been provided for me, and my checks
on the Nevada Bank would serve only to land me in jail.

The disturbed condition of the books attracted my attention once more.
The volumes were scattered over the desk and thrown about the room as
though somebody had been seeking for a mislaid document. I looked
curiously over them as I replaced them on the shelves. They were law-
books, California Reports, and the ordinary text-books and form-books
of the attorney. All bore on the fly-leaf the name of Horace H.
Plymire, but no paper or other indication of ownership could I find.

I wondered idly who this Plymire might be, and pictured to myself some
old attorney who had fallen into the hands of Doddridge Knapp, and had,