Bookkeeper, assistant bookkeeper and stenographer. Tried
to pump 'em and got frozen out. Yes, you've got an office force."

"Well, then," said Amidon, "we'll go down there in the morning, and
I'll tell this man Stevens--is that what you call him?--to show you all
through the books and things--going to buy or take a partnership, or
something. Then we can go through the business together. We can do it
that way, without being suspected, can't we?"

"Maybe," meditatively, "maybe we can. Take a sort of invoice, hey?
But don't you think we'd better have Brassfield on the witness-stand
for a while this evening? A sort of cramming--coaching--review, on the
eve of trial, you know?"

"No, no!" answered Florian. "No more of that, if it can be avoided."

The judge stroked his mustache in silence for a time.

"See here," asked he finally, "what did we bring madame and the
professor down here for, anyway, I'd like to know?"

"I know," said Amidon, "but, somehow, I feel like getting along without
it if I can. As little of her--of their--services as possible, Judge,
from now on."

"Oh!" said the judge, in a tone of one who suddenly sees the situation;
"all right, Florian, all right. Maybe it's best, maybe it's best.
Abnormal condition, as the professor says, and all that; effect on the
mind, and one thing and another. Yes--yes--yes!"

"If I have any duties to perform here, Judge, you must help me to keep
straight. I've never had much tendency to go wrong, you know, but that
was for lack of temptation, don't you think, Blodgett?"

"Well, well, Florian, I can't say as to that; can't say. Yes--and say!
You'll want to go over to the Waldron residence this evening. I'll
take you out and show you the house. By George! It must seem
extraordinarily odd to walk about among things you are supposed to know
like a book, and to be, in fact, a perfect stranger. Dante could have
used that idea, if it had occurred to him."

"An idea for Dante, indeed!" thought Amidon, as he walked toward the
house, which, from afar, the judge had pointed out to him. "For the
_Inferno_: a soul thrown into a realm full of its friends and enemies,
its loves and hates, shorn of memory, of all sense of familiarity, of
all its habits, stripped of all the protection of habitude. For the
_Inferno_, indeed!--Now this must be the house, with the white columns
running up to the top of the second story; crossing the ravine and
losing sight of it for a