Be careful.
I can say no more."

"He means Uncle Stanley," thought Mary, uneasily, and a shadow fell upon
the day. She was still troubled when another disturbing incident arose.

"I'll leave these papers in the desk here," she thought, taking her keys
from her handbag. She unlocked the top drawer and was about to place the
papers on top of those which already lay there, when suddenly she paused
and her eyes opened wide.

On the top letter in her drawer--a grey tinted sheet--was a scattered
mound of cigarette ash.

"Somebody's been here--snooping," she thought. "Somebody with a key to
the desk. He must have had a cigarette in his hand when he shut the
drawer, and the ashes jarred off without being noticed--"

Irresistibly her thoughts turned to Burdon Woodward, with his gold
cigarette case and match box.

"It was he who gave me the keys," she thought.

She sighed. A sense of walking among pitfalls took possession of her. As
you have probably often noticed, suspicion feeds upon suspicion, and as
Mary walked through the outer office she felt that more than one pair of
eyes were avoiding her. The old cashier kept his head buried in his
ledger and nearly all the men were busy with their papers and books.

"Perhaps it's because I'm a woman," she thought. Ma'm Maynard's words
arose with a new significance, "I tell you, Miss Mary, it has halways
been so, and it halways will. Everything that lives has its own natural
enemy--and a woman's natural enemy: eet is man!"

But Mary could still smile at that.

"Take Mr. MacPherson," she thought; "how is he my natural enemy? Or Judge
Cutler? Or Archey Forbes? Or Wally Cabot?" She felt more normal then, but
when these reflections had died away, she still occasionally felt her
thoughts reverting to Mac's warning, the cigarette ash, the averted
glances in the office.

The nest morning, though, she thought she had found the answer to the
latter puzzle. She had hardly finished breakfast when Judge Cutler was
announced, his hawk's eyes frowning and never a trace of his smile.

"Did you get your copy of the annual report?" he asked.

"Not yet," said Mary, somehow guessing what he meant. "Why?"

"I got mine in the mail this morning." He drew it from his pocket and his
frown grew deeper. "Let's go in the den," he said; "we've got to talk
this out."

It was the annual report of Spencer & Son's business and briefly stated,
it showed an alarming loss for the preceding twelve month