im,
and from a menacing growl of protest, it had risen to a shrill wail of
weakness and despair.

Henry Blaine was satisfied.

"Excuse me, Mr. Armstrong," he said gently. "The receiver is off my
telephone, here at your elbow. It would be unfortunate if we were
overheard. If you will allow me--"

But he got no further. Quick as he was, the other man was quicker. He
sprang up furiously, and dashed the telephone off the desk.

"Is this another of your d--d tricks?" he shouted. "If it is, whoever
was listening may hear the rest. You and Pennington Lawton between
you, drove my wife to suicide, but you'll not drive _me_ there! I'm
ruined, and broken, and hopeless, but I'll live on, live till I'm
even, do you hear? Live till I'm square with the game!"

His violence died out as swiftly as it had arisen, and he sank down in
the chair, his face buried in his bony hands, his thin shoulders
shaken with sobs.

Blaine quietly replaced the telephone and receiver, and seated
himself.

"Come, man, pull yourself together!" he said, not unkindly. "I'm not
hounding you; Lawton never harmed you, and now he is dead. He was my
client and I was bound to protect his interests, but as man to man,
the fault was yours and you know it. I tried to keep you from making a
fool of yourself and wrecking three lives, but I only succeeded in
saving one."

"But your men are hounding me, following me, shadowing me! I have come
to find out why!"

"And I would like to find out where you were on a certain night last
month--the ninth, to be exact," responded Blaine quietly.

"What affair is it of yours?" the other man asked wearily, adding:
"How should I know, now? One night is like another, to me."

"If you hate Pennington Lawton's memory as you seem to, the ninth of
November should stand out in your thoughts in letters of fire," the
detective went on, in even, quiet tone. "That was the night on which
Lawton died."

"Lawton?" Herbert Armstrong raised his haggard face. The meaning of
Blaine's remark utterly failed to pierce his consciousness. "The date
doesn't mean anything to me, but I remember the night, if that's what
you want to know about, although I'm hanged if I can see what it's got
to do with me! I'll never forget that night, because of the news which
reached me in the morning, that my worst enemy on earth had passed
away."

"Were you in Illington the evening before?" asked Blaine.

"I was not. I was in New Harbor, where I live, pla