ib tongue and
slippery ways."

As he ceased speaking Ferguson's ever ready handcuffs swung suggestively
from his hand, but Helen's agonized cry checked his approach toward
Rochester, who stood stolidly waiting for him.

"Father! You cannot permit this monstrous injustice, Philip shall not
suffer for another. No, Barbara," as her sister strove to quiet her, "we
must tell the truth."

"Suppose I tell it for Colonel McIntyre," Rochester advanced as the door
opened and Sylvester ushered in Benjamin Clymer. "You have come in time,
Clymer," his voice deepened, the voice of a man accustomed to present a
case and sway a court. "Wait, Sylvester, sit at that table and take down
these charges--"

"Charges?" questioned Kent, watching his partner narrowly; he tossed a
stenographic pad to Sylvester and made a place for him at his desk. "Go
on, Rochester; charges against whom?"

"Charges against the man who, occupying a position of trust, planned to
swindle the Metropolis Trust Company through forged notes and checks,"
Rochester stated with slow emphasis. "Jimmie Turnbull learned that you,
Clymer, were to visit Colonel McIntyre on Monday night, and he went
there in disguise to find out if his suspicions were correct. The
investigation cost him his life."

Clymer, who had followed Rochester's statement, first with bewilderment
and then with rising wrath, found his voice.

"You drunken scoundrel!" he roared. "How dare you!"

"Dare!" Rochester laughed recklessly. "Jimmie kept his wits to the last;
his mind was clear; he recognized you in the prisoner's pen and he
tried to call you, but his palsied tongue could not say Ben, but
stuttered--B--b--b."

"And what did he wish to tell me?" gasped Clymer, down whose colorless
face perspiration trickled.

"Aye, what?" broke in Kent significantly.

"Jimmie may not have gotten the information he wished at your house,
Colonel McIntyre, but his presence there on Monday night showed the
forger he was in danger, and like the human snake he is, he poisoned
without warning. Don't move--Sylvester!"

With a backward spring Kent caught his clerk as he sped for the door.

"Don't make any mistake in putting on the handcuffs this time,
Ferguson," he shouted. "A forger and a contortionist make a bad customer
to reckon with."

CHAPTER XXI. THE RIDDLE ANSWERED

There was absolute stillness in the room; then a babble of exclamations
broke out as Sylvester, his expression of dumb surprise gi