“Guess he’s not trailed you, Loveman. Come on, I want the dope on what happened to-night. Clifford can’t have your whole joint wired; let’s go into your bathroom--he can’t have touched that.” They withdrew and a moment later Clifford heard a door close. He slipped down, waited a space at Loveman’s door, and then, after a few moments’ manipulation with a skeleton key, he noiselessly opened it and softly stepped inside. The hallway was dark, but at one end was an open door from which light streamed. Toward this he slipped with a cat’s tread, and peeped in. He saw the bathroom, as large as an ordinary New York bedroom, finished in marble and white-tile, and in it sat little Loveman and the big-chested Bradley. In a low voice Loveman briefly outlined the fiasco of their careful scheme at Le Minuit. Bradley swore--and Clifford was the chief object of his guttural fury. “What we goin’ to do next?” “I’ve done one thing already. I beat it straight to Mary Regan.” “What for?” “She’s too good a thing to lose if we can hold her; so I tried to con her into believing I’d framed her for her own good. But that’s not the real reason--the big reason.” Loveman’s usually smooth voice was now nervous and tense. “Don’t you see the fix she’s got me in? She knows enough about me to get me disbarred, if she cared to talk--and perhaps get me a prison sentence on top of it--and perhaps get you sent away, too. So I simply had to have her on our side, if I could get her.” “Well, what did she say?” “She turned me down cold--said she was through with me.” Again Bradley swore. “Well, if you’re afraid of her, why don’t you beat her to that big stiff Morton--tell him who she is and what she’s done? You can get away with it.” “Telling Morton has got to be my last move. It’s too dangerous--I might implicate myself.” “Well, what you going to do?” “My chief business has got to be Mary Regan,” Loveman answered grimly--“fixing her so she can’t hurt me, and doing it quick.” “You mean croaking her?” “That raw stuff don’t go with me, Bradley. I’m not so tired that I’m willing to run the risk of sitting in the electric chair up at Sing Sing.” “There’s a lot of things besides being croaked that can happen to a woman in this town,” said Bradley. “The way that Mrs. Dormer case was worked ain’t so bad; it’s always good for a repeat. Mysterious disappearance until the danger is over. You can always handle a woman so she’ll have nothing much to say about the time she was missing.” “Too risky.” “How about smearing her? That would help some, if it was done proper.”