s
Billy Graham isn't in the market for sympathy. He tells me that he is
fairly familiar with the Thibault tanneries from hearsay and he is
confident that he is taking them some tips that will make him solid
with them from the start."

"Eh? What's that?" Suddenly intent, Simon Varr leaned forward and
fixed a sharp gaze on the speaker. "What is he taking them? What did
he refer to?"

"Why--nothing specific, Simon! No doubt he has picked up a score of
useful tips during the time he has been associated with us. We can't
stop him from giving them the benefit of his experience; that's the
sort of thing you must expect when you fire a good man without any
reason except that he has a pretty daughter whom you can't keep your
only son away from. I must say, Simon--"

"Must you? Please try not to!"

Jason complied with a shrug of his shoulders; why waste his breath on
this human lump of obstinacy?

Varr relaxed in his chair again, thinking. He ran over the events of
the previous night. Graham had drunk at least enough to render him
irresponsible for his impulses and actions. He had seen the notebook
lying on the desk. Enough time had elapsed between his departure and
the alarm of fire to have enabled him to slip down the hill and fire
the tannery. He might then have returned and watched his opportunity
to break into the house. Yes--it was possible, physically, for him to
be the guilty man. "Taking something valuable to Thibault?" The
notebook? Would he have the brazen nerve to make such a remark if he
were the thief? Yes! If Graham were the man, that identified him with
the masquerading monk, and _he_ had nerve enough for anything!

It struck Simon--while his partner waited in glum silence--that it
would be interesting to learn where Graham had been on the night before
after leaving him in the study. To put it more bluntly--had the man an
alibi? How did one go to work to learn such things, short of asking
open questions? Varr shelved the problem temporarily, though an idea
in the back of his head was slowly shaping itself into the answer. He
would do nothing decisive until he had weighed things more carefully
and was sure--

"How shall we replace Billy Graham?" said Jason Bolt, having fidgeted
in silence to the limit of his patience. "Have you any one in mind?"

"Certainly I have!" snapped his partner, who had given not a thought to
the matter until that moment. "D'you suppose I'd fire a man unl