Slant-Face’s theater, though the hour was only ten, was dark. He hurried to Slant-Face’s apartment; but Slant-Face was not there, and his wife knew nothing of his whereabouts. Downtown again, Clifford began a tour of Slant-Face’s hang-outs; and at length he found him standing alone at the end of the Knickerbocker bar, before him a glass of buttermilk--a slender, smartly dressed person, whose immobile, lean face was given a saturnine cast by the downward slant of the left corner of his mouth. “I saw your theater was closed, Slant-Face,” said Clifford. “What’s the matter?” “Bradley.” “Bradley! How could he have anything to do with closing your theater?” “Bradley hasn’t forgot my little part in your stunt that got him out of the Department. He just waited--and laid his plans. While films were being run off and the house was dark, he had pockets picked in my place, or had people say their pockets were picked--pulled this three times. What with my reputation, this was enough for the Commissioner of Licenses, and he closed my joint.” “That’s pretty rank. Bradley certainly does have a long memory--and a long arm!” “This is a five-reel picture, and it’s not all been run off yet,” half growled Slant-Face through his thin lips. “In the last reel, some one is going to get him!” He sipped his buttermilk, then abruptly: “Clifford, because of what you’ve done for me, I’ve played it straight for a year. The straight game don’t pay--not for me. So I’m through. I guess you understand what comes next.” “See here, Slant-Face, don’t be--” “I’m through!” There was the snap of absolute finality in the low, quiet voice. Clifford knew that mere words could not change the decision made behind that lean, grim visage; so he turned to the matter that had brought him there. “Have you seen your sister to-day?” “Haven’t seen Mary in six months.” “You mean you don’t know where she’s staying?” exclaimed Clifford. “Down South in the woods somewhere,--God knows why,--doing a stretch of self-imposed solitary.” The obviously honest answer sharpened Clifford’s already poignant uneasiness. “Slant-Face, I saw her an hour ago.” “In New York?” “At the Grand Alcazar.” And then he added: “She was with Peter Loveman.” Even the stoic Slant-Face started. “With Peter Loveman!--the lawyer that beat Bradley’s case for him! What the devil does that mean?” “Just what I’m wondering myself.” “You mean you didn’t ask her anything--didn’t speak to her?” “No.” Slant-Face looked his bewilderment. He had had his own private guess at what had been the situation between Clifford and his sister. But he did not ask the “why” of this to him strange behaviour on Clifford’s part. “Mary with Peter Loveman!” he repeated. “Either Mary is trying to put something across--in the old way, you understand; or else she’s--well, it looks like queer doings to me!” “That’s why I looked you up. Some one should step in, and stop what’s under way. I supposed you knew where she was.”