was pinning the traffic manager down with an eyehold which was
like a gripping hand, and the close air of the little mahogany bank cell
became suddenly charged with the subtle effluence of antagonism. Blount
was the first to break the painful silence.

"You have told me nothing new, Dick, or at least nothing that I have not
been taking for granted almost from the beginning. But let it be
understood between us, once for all, that I discuss my father, his
motives, or his acts, with no man living. We'll drop that phase of it;
it's a side issue, and has no bearing upon the business that brought us
here. You asked for the proof of my ability to compel your employers and
mine to turn over the clean leaf. You have it there under your hand."

For answer, Gantry pushed the rubber-banded file across the table to his
companion. "Take another look, Evan, and see how helpless you are in
the grip of a crooked world," he said, very gently.

Blount caught up the file and ran it through. It was made up wholly of
pieces of blank paper, cut to letter-size, and clipped at the corner
with a brass fastener, as the originals had been.

XIX

A COG IN THE WHEEL

While Blount was staring abstractedly at the file of blank sheets which
had been substituted for the incriminating letters of the vote-selling
corporation managers, with Gantry sitting back, alert and watchful, to
mark the first signs of the coming storm, there came a tap on the locked
door of the little room, and a deprecatory voice said: "It's our closing
time, gentlemen: if you are about through--"

"In a minute," returned Gantry quickly, and then he took the blank dummy
out of Blount's hands, pocketed it, shut the japanned safety box, and
touched his companion's shoulder.

"Let's get out of this, Evan," he said, still speaking as one speaks to
a hurt child. "Conroy wants to close up."

Blount suffered himself to be led away, and in the vault room he went
mechanically through the motions of locking up the empty box. In the
street Gantry once more took the lead, walking his silent charge around
the block and into the Temple Court elevator. A little later, when the
door of the private room in the up-town legal office had opened to admit
them, and Blount had dropped heavily into his own desk chair, Gantry
plunged promptly into the breach.

"We've been friendly enemies in this thing right from the start, Evan,"
he began, "and that's as it had to be. But blood--even th