I took my irons along."

"Newton!" cried Gertrude. "Were you there? You!"

"Yes," replied the man, grimly. "I was your chauffeur. I wouldn't trust
you to anyone else. I ain't forgot all you and your father done for me
when I was a kid."

"Newton, you've a queer sense of gratitude," she laughed, for the
situation seemed not without humor. "You ran away with me to protect
me."

"That's about the size of it. I didn't know what the others might do; I
did know I should bring you in safely."

"Where did you get that cab?" she asked him.

"It was one I ran all last summer out to my summer place at Itosco. It's
stored there now. The other we got at Bonborough from a friend of
Mann's. His chauffeur ran that. The third man was McAdoo."

"Then it was you who brought me--and Mr. Allingham--home?"

"Yes'm. And it was Mann's friend's machine that was wrecked; and they
had hard work to get the remains of it dragged off and hidden before
morning; but Mann is a slick one. As soon as we got in we reported to
him and he had his men out there with plenty to help. But it's more
about Mann I want to tell you. It ain't Vickery, you want to haul into
court. It's Mann. He's made more'n a hundred thousand off'n the city.
He's pulled off already over thirty thousand on that Boulevard Railway
scheme. Vickery's only a tool. If you'd bitten his bait and taken what
they offered you, they had it planned that Mann was to be general
manager. That railway would have swallowed up all the others; and then
he was to be president. He means to be a millionaire yet. He will be, if
you don't get him--and quick."

"Wait; let's call Bailey." She rang up on the telephone. "But you knew
nothing about the trap they caught Miss Snow and me in?"

"No." He waited until she called up Bailey Armstrong, and requested him
to come to the house at once.

"No," he went on. "I swear it. They knew I hadn't much sympathy for
their plots against you and got shy of letting me in on them. But
there's a barkeep in my saloon--or was--who kept them posted. When you
telephoned me that day, he put 'em wise right off, quick. Mann was the
one who planned your imprisonment. He thought out all the details--I've
only just found this out--and since his talk with you this afternoon, he
thought you were getting wise, too. So he went right out, got his bag
(which has been packed for some time) and took the night train East. He
owes me a big bill--and more promises than he can ever p