With obvious reluctance, Mame shuffled through the hall and obeyed.

"Hello, Mrs. Pennold!" Guy greeted her heartily, but without offering
his hand. He brushed past her half-defensive figure with scant
ceremony, and entered the kitchen. "Hello, Pennold. Thought I might
find you home this cold morning. How goes it?"

"Same as usual." Pennold rose slowly and looked at his visitor with
swiftly narrowed eyes. There was a new note in the young man's voice
which the other vaguely recognized; it was as if a lantern had
suddenly flashed into his face from the darkness, or an authoritative
hand been laid upon his shoulder. He motioned mechanically toward a
chair on the other side of the stove, and added slowly: "S'prised to
see you, Al. Didn't expect you'd be around here again after your
get-away. Workin' once more?"

"Oh, I'm right on the job!" responded Guy briskly. He drew the chair
close to the square deal table, so close that he could have reached
out, had he pleased, and touched his host's sleeve. Pennold seated
himself again in his old position, significantly half-turned, so that
when he glanced slyly at his visitor it was over his shoulder, in the
furtive fashion of one on guard.

"Ain't back with the Brooklyn and Queens, are you?" he asked.

"No. It got too slow for me there. I found something bigger to do."

Mame Pennold, who had been hovering in the background, came forward
now and faced him across the table, her shrewd eyes fastened upon
him.

"Must have easy hours, when you can get off in the morning like this?"
she observed. "Didn't forget your old friends, did you?"

"No, of course not. I hadn't anything more important to do this
morning, so I thought I'd drop in and see you both."

His hand traveled to his breast pocket, and at the gesture, Mame's
gaunt body stiffened suddenly.

"Didn't come to inquire about our health, did you?" she shot at him,
acrimoniously.

"I came to see you about another matter--"

"Not on the trail of old Jimmy Brunell still, on that business of the
bonds found at the bank?" Walter's voice was suddenly shrill with
simulated mirth. "Nothin' in that for you, Al; not a nickel, if that's
what you're here for."

"I'm not on Brunell's trail. I've found him," Morrow returned quietly;
and in the tense pause which ensued he added dryly: "You led me to
him."

"So that's what it was, a plant!" Walter started from his chair, but
Mame laid a trembling, sinewy hand upon his should