The girl nodded. "Thanks," she said briefly, "that's all I wanted. And I guess I won't waste any time, either. Now, as I was telling you, this Gordon is a pretty smooth kind of a guy. He goes into this thing right, from the breakaway. Stage setting, lights turned down, soft music, the whole show. Now, the play is to get you compromised with this girl, and then bleed you for all they think you'll stand for, so they get you off on an island somewhere alone with this girl--I don't know if it's really an island, or whether that's just a name they've got for it. Gordon's out there now, I believe; but, anyway, they get you there alone with the girl. Well, I suppose there's no need to go into details. I take it, though, that there's some play with knockout drops, or something of the sort. That's only a guess, though; you know what happened better than I do. Anyway, the point is that between them they got you dead to rights, and now they've started to bleed you. What they want, or how much they've got you for, I don't know, but it must be good and plenty, because the woman who played the smallest part of all flashes a roll as big as your arm, and, if a super gets that, what do the star and the leading lady get? I don't know, but I guess you do, all right. "Now, they're two things more. One, how do I know all this? Because the woman who did the loving mother is a friend of mine, and she gets full up at my house last night, and tells me the whole yarn, or mostly the whole of it; enough so I can see you're being done for fair. Two, why do I come to you about it, instead of holding them up for money? Because I hate Gordon and his crowd, and I want to see you get back at them, and because if you can make them give back what they've stuck you for, it's worth your while to pay me well for putting you on. That's business, isn't it? There, I guess that covers it, and I guess I'm within my five minutes. So what do you say now? Is it 'Good night,' or is it 'Won't you stay a little longer'? Is it go or stay?" Palmer's air of bored indifference had long since vanished. Now he sat silent, motionless, while the ticking of the clock was the only sound to be heard in the room. A minute passed, two, three. Then, with a quick intake of his breath, he leaned forward in his chair. "It's stay," he said. CHAPTER X THE CRISIS The sun still hung an hour high above the horizon. No faintest breath of wind was stirring, and the tall pines along the island's shore stood mirrored in the broad lake's placid calm. The wildfowl, true to their custom, were bedded in huge flocks far out towards the center of the lake, and what few ducks there were stirring, kept for the most part warily out of range of the point.