He pulled off his cap. "Before I go to sleep I shall say my little prayer. I shall ask that you won't be thinking I have gone too far. I'm sure it won't be a prayer to the God of the Old Testament, such as Eck Flagg was reading about. I'll whisper up to Mother Mary. She understands women. I don't." He bowed in silence when she gave him a hasty "good night!" Latisan whirled suddenly after the girl closed the door behind her--came about on his heels so quickly that he nearly bumped into the assiduous operative Crowley, who had been taking desperate chances that evening. But Latisan's gaze was directed downward in deep thought as he walked slowly away, and he did not perceive the eavesdropper. Mr. Crowley had heard aplenty, so he informed himself; he had followed them all the way from the big house down to the tavern, treading close behind, depending on their absorption in each other, his shoes in his hand, not minding the ledges and the mud; and he was in his mental stocking feet, too, treading on the bedrock of the obvious, as he figured on the proposition. He had been told many times, Mr. Crowley had, that he possessed a single-track mind and was not fitted to deal with the subtleties of criminal investigation and had not the expansive wit to comprehend the roundabout ways of steering victims to their doom. But Mr. Crowley was indubitably fitted by training to write a handbook on the art of double-crossing--and he reckoned he knew an out-and-out job of that sort after what he had heard that evening. For his own peace of mind, and to save himself from going crazy by reason of any more puzzlement over Miss Kennard's alleged mysterious methods in her work, he kept insisting to himself that she was merely double-crossing the Vose-Mern agency in the good old-fashioned way. Not his the task to wonder why! He rushed up to his room and started in on his report. It had stuck in Crowley's crop--seemed humiliating--to be made a subaltern in the case of women operatives. He believed that at last he was in right and proper on the grand opportunity of his career; he would come down from the bush with the bacon; Elsham had fallen down and Kennard was double-crossing--and Crowley, good old reliable Crowley, would show Chief Mern where the credit should go! He set his little, cheap typewriter on his sturdy knees and pecked away stolidly with his forefingers. Latisan remained outdoors a long time, for the night matched the gloom of his thoughts. And once more, in spite of himself, his dark ponderings concerned themselves with suspicions as to what and who this girl really was.