ardwick himself might have changed his mind, and
instructed his subordinate to secure the papers. Nevertheless, there was
no sign of hurry in Miss Jennie's demeanour as she placed the papers
back in their blue envelope and bade the anxious Hazel good-bye.

Once more in the hansom, she ordered the man to drive her to Charing
Cross, and when she was ten minutes away from Rupert Square she changed
her direction and desired him to take her to the office of the _Evening
Graphite_, where she knew Mr. Stoneham would be busy with his leading
article, and probably impatiently awaiting further details of the
conspiracy he was to lay open before the public. A light was burning in
the editorial rooms of the office of the _Evening Graphite_, always a
suspicious thing in such an establishment, and well calculated to cause
the editor of any rival evening paper to tremble, should he catch a
glimpse of burning gas in a spot where the work of the day should be
finished at latest by five o'clock. Light in the room of the evening
journalist usually indicates that something important is on hand.

A glance at the papers Miss Baxter brought to him showed Mr. Stoneham
that he had at least got the worth of his fifty pounds. There would be a
fluttering in high places next day. He made arrangements before he
left to have the paper issued a little earlier than was customary,
calculating his time with exactitude, so that rival sheets could not
have the news in their first edition, cribbed from the _Graphite_,
and yet the paper would be on the street, with the newsboys shouting,
"'Orrible scandal," before any other evening journal was visible.
And this was accomplished the following day with a precision truly
admirable.

Mr. Stoneham, with a craft worthy of all commendation, kept back from
the early issue a small fraction of the figures that were in his
possession, so that he might print them in the so-called fourth edition,
and thus put upon the second lot of contents--bills sent out, in huge,
startling black type, "Further Revelations of the Board of Construction
Scandal;" and his scathing leading article, in which he indignantly
demanded a Parliamentary inquiry into the conduct of the Board, was
recognized, even by the friends of that public body, as having seriously
shaken confidence in it. The reception of the news by the other evening
papers was most flattering. One or two ignored it altogether, others
alluded to it as a rumour, that it "all