estate transaction in question had been planned by Mr. Ferguson
for the purpose of quieting suspicion in the mind of Nickleby. It was a
case of fighting the devil with fire; for had Nickleby not believed that
he was dealing with men who were as greedy as himself they would never
have succeeded in uncovering the evidence they were after.

As part of their plan, therefore, they had gone to Nickleby with the
proposal that the three of them--Nickleby, Ferguson and himself--form a
little syndicate on the quiet to buy up a tract of land on which the
Government had its eye as a prospective location for the new Deaf & Dumb
Institute. The land had a market value of $100,000 and this sum the
Government was quite ready to pay. Nickleby had advanced the loan to
negotiate the deal and Ferguson had bought up the land in small lots at
sacrifice prices from individual owners for a total of $50,000. The
Honorable Milton had told Nickleby that he was acting for the Government;
but the cheque with which he had "purchased" the land from the syndicate
of three had been his personal cheque. The amount was $200,000. The
syndicate's profit, therefore, was $150,000 and this sum they had divided
in three, $50,000 each. But Nickleby did not know--nor McAllister,
either--that the whole thing had been juggled for a purpose, with the
sanction of the Attorney General, and that the "profits" which had gone
to Mr. Ferguson and himself had been thrown back into the deal when the
site had been turned over to the Government, which therefore obtained the
land at its legitimate market value, $100,000.

No doubt the whole thing had been indiscreet; but by this time both
Ferguson and himself had got so interested in the little game they were
playing with the salvation of the loan company as the stakes that they
had overlooked the surface appearances. The discovery that every move
they had made had been watched by the lynx-eyed McAllister had instilled
in them a profound respect.

To bring things to a head and to justify their actions Ferguson and he
had undertaken to prove their case against Nickleby by exposing him and
his methods to the gentlemen who had last entered the room. These
gentlemen had been placed where they could listen to the evidence for
themselves and, to make doubly sure, a dictaphone had been installed and
an official court stenographer had taken down the whole thing. It was
almost incredible that a criminal of this man's type ha