Several times I asked him, "Are you sure this won't get you into trouble with your 'people'? You seem to accuse everybody on each side." Schnitzel's eyes instantly closed with suspicion. "Don't you worry about me and my people," he returned sulkily. "That's _my_ secret, and you won't find it out, neither. I may be as crooked as the rest of them, but I'm not giving away my employer." I suppose I looked puzzled. "I mean not a second time," he added hastily. "I know what you're thinking of, and I got five thousand dollars for it. But now I mean to stick by the men that pay my wages." "But you've told me enough about each of the three to put any one of them in jail." "Of course, I have," cried Schnitzel triumphantly. "If I'd let down on any one crowd you'd know I was working for that crowd, so I've touched 'em all up. Only what I told you about my crowd--isn't true." The report we finally drew up was so sensational that I was of a mind to throw it overboard. It accused members of the Cabinet, of our Senate, diplomats, business men of national interest, judges of the Valencia courts, private secretaries, clerks, hired bullies, and filibusters. Men the trust could not bribe it had blackmailed. Those it could not corrupt, and they were pitifully few, it crushed with some disgraceful charge. Looking over my notes, I said: "You seem to have made every charge except murder." "How'd I come to leave that out?" Schnitzel answered flippantly. "What about Coleman, the foreman at Bahia, and that German contractor, Ebhardt, and old Smedburg? They talked too much, and they died of yellow-fever, maybe, and maybe what happened to them was they ate knockout drops in their soup." I disbelieved him, but there came a sudden nasty doubt. "Curtis, who managed the company's plant at Barcelona, died of yellow-fever," I said, "and was buried the same day." For some time Schnitzel glowered uncertainly at the bulkhead. "Did you know him?" he asked. "When I was in the legation I knew him well," I said. "So did I," said Schnitzel. "He wasn't murdered. He murdered himself. He was wrong ten thousand dollars in his accounts. He got worrying about it and we found him outside the clearing with a hole in his head. He left a note saying he couldn't bear the disgrace. As if the company would hold a little grafting against as good a man as Curtis!" Schnitzel coughed and pretended it was his cigarette. "You see you don't put in nothing against him," he added savagely. It was the first time I had seen Schnitzel show emotion, and I was moved to preach. "Why don't you quit?" I said. "You had an A1 job as a stenographer. Why don't you go back to it?"