Monsieur Le Bain, immigrant from somewhere in that part of France which lies below Fourteenth Street, slowly turned about and fumbled in a drawer of his desk. He was a long time about it, but when he finally turned there was a key in his long yellowish-white hands. Clifford took the key, but as he did so he caught the fading remnant of a crafty look in Le Bain’s shifty eyes. “Boys,” he said sharply, “you stick right here and entertain this gentleman for two hours. He can do anything he likes except talk to people--or talk into that telephone.” Clifford caught the twitch in Le Bain’s face, and he knew he had forestalled the other’s intent to telephone warning to the brief tenants of the house. Clifford was down in the street two minutes after he had entered Le Minuit. Here he found Uncle George, waiting. “Hate to use you as a messenger boy, Uncle George,” he said rapidly--“but you’re the best possible man for the job. Mind skirmishing around Broadway until you find Jimmie Kelly and some more of his men?” “I’m hired,” the old man replied promptly. “Tell Jimmie to hang around the Knickerbocker on the chance that I may telephone him. And you might hang around the ’phone yourself.” “I’ll never leave it!” said Uncle George. Clifford hurried from Le Minuit, and five minutes later he was unlocking the heavy outside door, and then the door within that, of the dark-faced house in the upper Forties. He crept down the dim hall, muted with Persian rugs, and soon he was gazing through cautiously parted curtains into the oak-paneled dining-room, and at the six celebrants of Jack Morton’s third birthday party of that week. Clifford watched and listened, every sense alert. The last of that little scene between Jack and Nina Cordova over the checks was being enacted: he saw Jack, laughing at the business ignorance of the “pre’ li’l’ fool,” sign the checks and hand them over--and he saw Nina’s scribbling pen fill them in (before Jack’s eyes)--and he heard her slowly repeat: “Payable to--Cash--Five--Hundred--Dollars.” Clifford drew a quick breath. He understood it all now--or thought he did. So that was what Loveman was up to! Well, it was worth Loveman’s while to pay almost any price for the guaranteed privacy of Le Bain’s house! The next moment Loveman was coming straight toward him. But Clifford had already made a swift survey of the resources of his situation; and before Loveman was in the hallway, he was behind a pair of tapestries at the forward end of the hall. The space behind him was unlighted, but he sensed that he was in the drawing-room. Peering out, he saw the brief scene between Nina and Loveman. That little scene convinced him that he had been correct in his conclusion of a few minutes before as to the significance of this affair in this house that told no secrets.