think,
up to a certain point. When--knowing who Eaton was--you got him into a
polo game, it was so that, if your interests were best served by
exposing him, you could do so without revealing the real source of your
knowledge of him. But an unforeseen event arose. The drafts and lists
relating to the reorganization of the Latron properties--containing the
very facts, no doubt, which first had aroused Warden's suspicions--were
sent me through Warden's office. At first there was nothing
threatening to you in this, because their contents could reach me only
through you. But in the uncertainty I felt, I had my daughter take
these matters out of your hands; you did not dare then even to ask me
to give them back, for fear that would draw my attention to them and to
you.

"That night, Avery, you sent an unsigned telegram from the office in
the village; almost within twenty-four hours my study was entered, the
safe inaccessible to you was broken open, the contents were carried
away. The study window had not been forced; it had been left open from
within. Do you suppose I do not know that one of the two men in the
study last night was the principal whose agents had failed in two
attempts to get rid of Overton for him, whose other agent--yourself,
Avery--had failed to intercept the evidence which would have revealed
the truth to me, so that, no longer trusting to agents, he himself had
come in desperation to prevent my learning the facts? I realize fully,
Avery, that by means of you my blindness and my reputation have been
used for five years to conceal from the public the fact that Matthew
Latron had not been murdered, but was still alive!"

The blind man halted; he had not gone through this long conversation,
with all the strain that it entailed upon himself, without a definite
object; and now, as he listened to Avery's quick breathing and the
nervous tapping of his fingers against the arm of his chair, he
realized that this object was accomplished. Avery not only realized
that the end of deception and concealment had come; he recognized
thoroughly that Santoine would not have spoken until he had certain
proof to back his words. Avery might believe that, as yet, the blind
man had not all the proof in his possession; but Avery knew--as he was
aware that Santoine also knew--that exposure threatened so many men
that some one of them now was certain to come forward to save himself
at the expense of the others. And Avery