owly upon Banneker.

Mr. Gordon's frame of mind was unenviable. The Inside Room, moved by
esoteric considerations, political and, more remotely, financial, had
issued to him a managerial ukase; no police investigation if it could be
avoided. Now, news was the guise in which Mr. Gordon sincerely worshiped
Truth, the God. But Mammon, in the Inside Room, held the purse-strings
Mr. Gordon had arrived at his honorable and well-paid position, not by
wisdom alone, but also by compromise. Here was a situation where news
must give way to the more essential interests of the paper.

"Mr. Banneker," he said, "that investigation will take a great deal of
your time; more, I fear, than the paper can afford to give you."

"They will arrange to put me on the stand in the mornings."

"Further, any connection between a Ledger man and the Enderby Committee
is undesirable and injudicious."

"I'm sorry," answered Banneker simply. "I've said I'd go through with
it."

Mr. Gordon selected a fresh knuckle for his modified drumming. "Have you
considered your duty to the paper, Mr. Banneker? If not, I advise you to
do so." The careful manner, more than the words, implied threat.

Banneker leaned forward as if for a confidential communication, as he
lapsed into a gross Westernism:

"Mr. Gordon, _I_ am paying for this round of drinks."

Somehow the managing editor received the impression that this remark,
delivered in just that tone of voice and in its own proper environment,
was usually accompanied by a smooth motion of the hand toward the pistol
holster.

Banneker, after asking whether there was anything more, and receiving a
displeased shake of the head, went away.

"Now," said he to the waiting Tommy Burt, "they'll probably fire me."

"Let 'em! You can get plenty of other jobs. But I don't think they will.
Old Gordon is really with you. It makes him sick to have to doctor
news."

Sleepless until almost morning, Banneker reviewed in smallest detail his
decision and the situation to which it had led. He thought that he had
taken the right course. He felt that Miss Camilla would approve. Judge
Enderby's personality, he recognized, had exerted some influence upon
his decision. He had conceived for the lawyer an instinctive respect and
liking. There was about him a power of attraction, not readily
definable, but seeming mysteriously to assert some hidden claim from the
past.

Where had he seen that fine and still face before?