the mystery of the robberies, Lidgerwood began to get
glimpses of a deeper mystery involving Flemister and Hallock. Angelic
tradition, never very clearly defined and always shot through with
prejudice, spoke freely of a former friendship between the two men.
Whether the friendship had been broken, or whether, for reasons best
known to themselves, they had allowed the impression to go out that it
had been broken, Lidgerwood could not determine from the bits of gossip
brought in by the trainmaster. But one thing was certain: of all the
minor officials in the railway service, Hallock was the one who was best
able to forward and to conceal Flemister's thieveries.

It was in the midst of these subterranean investigations that Lidgerwood
had a call from the owner of the Wire-Silver. On the Saturday in the
week of surcease, Flemister came in on the noon train from the west, and
it was McCloskey who ushered him into the superintendent's office.
Lidgerwood looked up and saw a small man wearing the khaki of the
engineers, with a soft felt hat to match. The snapping black eyes, with
the straight brows almost meeting over the nose, suggested Goethe's
_Mephistopheles_, and Flemister shaved to fit the part, with curling
mustaches and a dagger-pointed imperial. Instantly Lidgerwood began
turning the memory pages in an effort to recall where he had seen the
man before, but it was not until Flemister began to speak that he
remembered his first day in authority, the wreck at Gloria Siding, and
the man who had driven up in a buckboard to hold converse with the
master-mechanic.

"I've been trying to find time for a month or more to come up and get
acquainted with you, Mr. Lidgerwood," the visitor began, when Lidgerwood
had waved him to a chair. "I hope you are not going to hold it against
me that I haven't done it sooner."

Lidgerwood's smile was meant to be no more than decently hospitable.

"We are not standing much upon ceremony in these days of
reorganization," he said. Then, to hold the interview down firmly to a
business basis: "What can I do for you, Mr. Flemister?"

"Nothing--nothing on top of earth; it's the other way round. I came to
do something for you--or, rather, for one of your subordinates. Hallock
tells me that the ghost of the old Mesa Building and Loan Association
still refuses to be laid, and he intimates that some of the survivors
are trying to make it unpleasant for him by accusing him to you."

"Yes," said Lid