path of all the gossip that traveled to and fro; therefore,
the role suited his needs.

His nightly conferences with Miss Elsham at the parlor window were not
pleasant; Miss Elsham was not in a state of mind which conduced to
cordial relations.

She had not been able to "dredge" Miss Kennard. That young lady waited
on Miss Elsham, but not with a tray. After a talk with Brophy, who
agreed with her absolutely and placatingly, begging her to suit herself
in all her acts provided she would stay on, Miss Kennard went into the
parlor, closed the door carefully, and told Miss Elsham where that young
woman got off as an exacting lady of leisure. "Mr. Mern would not allow
it--one operative doing menial work for another. If you choose to come
into the dining room, that's different."

Miss Kennard then turned and walked out. She refused to stay with Miss
Elsham and have a talk. "We are ordered to be very careful up here," she
reminded the operative. Miss Elsham was impressed. It was as if Mern
were sending new cautions by this latest arrival.

Miss Kennard, in her dabblings in psychoanalysis, had secured some
concrete aids for action in addition to the vague abstractions which had
come into her mind when Latisan had so naively confessed on the cliff
above the cataract. She understood fully the potency of a suggestion
which left a lot to the imagination of the other party; only a bit of a
suggestion is needed--and it must be left to itself, like yeast, to
induce fermentation. For that reason Miss Kennard abruptly walked out
and left Miss Elsham alone to reflect--not running away, but retiring
with the air of one who had said a sufficient number of words to the
wise.

Miss Elsham, in her conference at the window with Crowley that evening,
revealed how actively her batch of ponderings had been set to working by
that bit of suggestion. Crowley, listening, wished privately that he
could call back that report to Mern; Mern had repeatedly warned him to
keep to his place as a strong-arm operative, bluntly bearing down on the
fact that Crowley's brains were not suited for the finer points of
machination. According to Miss Elsham's figuring--and Crowley
acknowledged her innate brightness--the plot had thickened and Kennard,
known to all operatives as Mern's close confidant, was up there as chief
performer.

Several days elapsed before Crowley--perspiring whenever his worries
assailed him--got any word from Mern. The chief wrote guar