airs right off the bat." And the pair went down in the
elevator with Blount, chuckling to themselves at their own discomfiture.

Having set his hand to the plough, Blount did nothing carelessly.
Sauntering slowly, and even pausing to light a cigar, he trailed the two
policemen until they were safely in another street. Then he turned back
to the great office building and once more had himself lifted to the
upper floor. In the office corridor he waited until the car had dropped
out of sight; waited still longer to give the drowsy night-boy time to
settle himself on his stool and go to sleep. Then he went swiftly to the
door of the private room and unlocked it.

Gryson was ready, and even in the dim light of the corridor Blount could
see that he was white-faced and trembling. In the silent faring to the
stair which wound down in a spiral around the freight elevator Blount
gripped the arm of trembling.

"You've got to get your nerve," he gritted savagely, "or you'll be
nipped before you've gone a block!" And then: "Here's the stair: follow
it down until you get to the basement. There's a coal entrance from the
alley, and the engineer will be with his boilers in the other wing--and
probably asleep. You've got it straight, have you? You're to bring the
papers to my office on or before Saturday night. I'll be looking out for
you, and if you bring me the evidence, you'll be taken care of. That's
all. Down with you, now, and go quietly. If you're caught, I drop you
like a hot nail; remember that."

Still puffing at the cigar which glowed redly in the darkness of the
wing corridor, Blount waited until his man had been given time to reach
the basement. Then he walked slowly back to the main corridor and
descended by the public stair without awakening the elevator boy, who
was sleeping soundly in his car on the ground level.

On the short walk to the hotel the full significance of the thing he had
done had its innings. Cynical criticism to the contrary notwithstanding,
there is now and then an honest lawyer who regards his oath of admission
to the bar--the oath which binds him to uphold the cause of justice and
fair dealing--as something more than a mere form of words. Beyond all
question, an honest man who has sworn to uphold the law may neither
connive at crime nor shield a criminal. Blount tried the shift of every
man who has ever stepped aside out of the plain path of rectitude; he
told himself morosely that he had nothing