my shoulders.

"No, it's locked up. But no one ever comes in here but me, and"--he gave
a shove at the office door that seemed to have stuck,--"and Miss Brown!"

But I was speechless where I stood behind him. There was the bare
office; Dudley's locked desk; Dudley's safe against the wall. And
turning away from the safe, in her blue sweater and blue skirt and
stockings and little buckled shoes, was my dream girl!

Something in my heart turned over as I looked at her. It was not that
she had started, for she had not. She just stood in front of us, poised
and serene, and some sort of a letter she had been writing lay half
finished on Dudley's desk. But something totally outside me told me she
had been writing no letter while we were out; that she knew the
combination of the safe; had opened it; had but just shut it; and--_that
she had been doing something to the boxes of gold inside it_.

There was nothing in her face to say so, though, and my thought never
struck Dudley. He gave her a nod and a patronizing: "Well, nice girl,"
without the least surprise at seeing her there. But I had seen a pin dot
of blue sealing wax on the glimpse of white blouse that showed through
the open front of her sweater, and something else. I stooped, while
Dudley was fussing with the lock of his desk, and picked up a curious
little gold seal that lay on the floor by the safe.

Whether I meant to speak of it or not I don't know; for quick as light,
the girl held out her hand for it. I said nothing as I gave it to her.
Dudley did not see me do it; and, of course, it might have been a seal
of his own. But, if it were, why did not Paulette Brown say so,--or say
something--instead of standing dead white and silent till I turned away?

I knew--as I said "Oh" over Dudley's gold, and my dream girl slipped out
of the room--that I had helped her to keep some kind of a secret for
the second time. And that if she had any mysterious business at La
Chance it was something fishy about Dudley's gold!

CHAPTER IV

THE MAN IN THE DARK

It sounded crazy, for what could a girl like that do to gold that was
securely packed? But women had been mixed up in ugly work about gold
before, and somehow the vision of my dream girl standing by the safe
stuck to me all that day. Suppose I had helped her to cover up a theft
from Dudley! It was funny; but the ludicrous side of it did not strike
me. What did was that I must see her alone and get rid of the poiso