pe. "I
took it the case was urgent."

Aroused a little out of his stupefaction by the matter-of-fact
steadiness of the voice, Masters came wearily to his feet. Through an
open door which gave upon the sleeping-room, Colonel Wallifarro caught a
glimpse of an untouched bed and knew that the other must have spent the
night sitting here, wakeful yet forgetful of the hearth-fire that had
sputtered to its death.

"I'm ruined, Tom," announced Larry Masters in an intonation which ran
level and unmodulated, as though even the voice of the man had lost all
flexibility, and having made that startling assertion the speaker sank
again into his chair and his former inertness of posture.

To press with questions at the moment seemed useless, so the lawyer
threw off his overcoat and knelt down to rekindle and replenish the
fire.

When at last it was again blazing he found and poured whiskey, and at
the end of ten minutes he prompted again, "I've come in answer to your
summons, Larry. Hadn't you better try to tell me about it?"

The man nodded, and with an effort pulled himself somewhat together.
"This time it's not only ruin but disgrace--prison, I expect."

"What have you done?"

"The fund. All of it. It's gone."

"The fund--gone? I don't understand." Colonel Wallifarro spoke with a
forehead corrugated in bewilderment. "Begin at the start of the story.
You forget that I haven't the remotest idea of what this is all about."

"The fund, I tell you," reiterated Masters stupidly. "Gone!"

"Gather yourself together, man. Drink that whiskey."

For once the glass had stood unregarded at the Englishman's elbow. Now
he lifted it abstractedly to his lips, but this time he only sipped it
and set it down. Then with an effort he rose and went to the hearth,
where he stood with trembling hands outspread and limbs shivering before
the rekindled blaze.

"I met Cantwell in Lexington.... We talked the matter over as to the
final details.... The rest had been arranged, you see.... Finally he
gave me the money ... in cash ... $20,000 it was."

"Twenty thousand--gone? Whose money?"

"The company's."

Colonel Wallifarro braced himself as he had braced himself against many
other shocks. Patiently his legal capacity for bringing coherence out of
obscurity led his dazed companion through the mazes of his torpor.
Direct questioning found a trail of broken narrative and followed it
with a hound's pertinacity, until the story rounded into some