lish--"

"It mustn't," she said. "Ban, if it did--it would make it impossible for
us to go on as we have been. Don't you see that it would?"

He turned sallow under his ruddy skin. "Then I'll stop it, one way or
another. I'll put the fear of God into that filthy old worm that runs
the blackmail shop. The first thing is to find out, though, whether
there's anything in it. I did hear a hint...." He lost himself in
musings, trying to recall an occult remark which the obsequious Ely Ives
had made to him sometime before. "And I know where I can do it," he
ended.

To go to Ives for anything was heartily distasteful to him. But this was
a necessity. He cautiously questioned the unofficial factotum of his
employer. Had Ives heard anything of a projected attack on him in The
Searchlight? Why, yes; Ives had (naturally, since it was he and not
Babson who had furnished the material). In fact, he had an underground
wire into the office of that weekly of spice and scurrility which might
be tapped to oblige a friend.

Banneker winced at the characterization, but confessed that he would be
appreciative of any information. In three days a galley proof of the
paragraph was in his hands. It confirmed his angriest fears. Publication
of it would smear Io's name with scandal, and, by consequence, direct
the leering gaze of the world upon their love.

"What is this; blackmail?" he asked Ives.

"Might be."

"Who wrote it?"

"Reads like the old buzzard's own style."

"I'll go and see him," said Banneker, half to himself.

"You can go, but I don't think you'll see him." Ives set forth in detail
the venerable editor's procedure as to troublesome callers. It was
specific and curious. Foreseeing that he would probably have to fight
with his opponent's weapons, Banneker sought out Russell Edmonds and
asked for all the information regarding The Searchlight and its
proprietor-editor in the veteran's possession. Edmonds had a fund of it.

"But it won't smoke him out," he said. "That skunk lives in a deep
hole."

"If I can't smoke him out, I'll blast him out," declared Banneker, and
set himself to the composition of an editorial which consumed the
remainder of the working day.

With a typed copy in his pocket, he called, a little before noon, at the
office of The Searchlight and sent in his card to Major Bussey. The
Major was not in. When was he expected? As for that, there was no
telling; he was quite irregular. Very well, Mr. Banneker