gnored the fact that already the
fellow had waited six weeks.

Bangs was not at home. The square, flat-topped mahogany desk at which
the two young men worked together blinked up at Laurie with the
undimmed luster of a fine piece of furniture on which the polisher
alone had labored that morning. Without taking the trouble to remove his
hat and coat, Laurie dropped into a chair and tried to think things out.
But the process of thinking eluded him, or, rather, his mind shied at it
as a skittish horse might shy if confronted on a dark road with shapes
vaguely familiar yet mysterious.

Frankly, he couldn't make head or tail of this mess Doris seemed to be
in. His memory reminded him that such "messes" existed. He had heard and
read of all sorts of plots and counter-plots, in which all types of
humans figured. His imagination underscored the memory. But, someway,
Doris--he loved to repeat the name even to himself--someway Doris was
not the type that figured in such plots.

Also, there were other things hard to understand. She had let herself
starve for four days, though she wore around her neck a chain that she
admitted represented a month's support. And this fellow, Herbert Ransome
Shaw--where the devil did he come in? A fellow with a name like that and
with snaky eyes like his was capable of anything. And yet--

Young Devon had the intolerance of American youth for the things outside
his personal experience. The sort of thing Doris was hinting at didn't
happen here; that was all there was to it. What _was_ happening seemed
pretty clear. The girl was, or fancied herself, in the power of an
unscrupulous scamp who was using that power for some purpose of his own.
If that was it--and this thing, Laurie handsomely admitted, really did
happen sometimes--it ought to be fairly easy for an athletic chap of
twenty-four to put an end to it. He recalled the look in Shaw's
projecting eyes, the snakelike forward thrust of his sleek head; and an
intense desire seized him to get his hands on the fellow's throat and
choke him till his eyes stuck out twice as far as they did now. If that
were duty, then duty would be a delight.

Having reached this edifying point in his reflections, he rose. Why
delay? Perhaps he could find the chap somewhere. Perhaps the waiter at
the restaurant where they had lunched knew where he lived. But, no, of
course not. It was not the kind of restaurant his sort patronized. Shaw
had simply followed him and Dor