Anyway, it wasn’t the record of a desperado, and they’d have been sort of baffled to fit his past actions with his present, if it hadn’t been for one thing that, according to their experience, was very significant. In the last two months he’d spent a lot more money than his salary. As Miss Whitehall’s managing clerk he had been paid sixty-five dollars a week, and he had been living at the rate of a man who has hundreds. It wasn’t in his place—that was simple enough—a back room in a lodging house—but he’d been a spender in the white lights of Broadway. At expensive restaurants and lobster palaces he’d become a familiar figure, the gambling houses knew him, and he’d ridden round in motors like a capitalist. "By the swath he’s been cutting," said Babbitts, "you’d suppose he had an income in five figures." "O Soapy," I said horrified. "They don’t think he was _paid_ for it?" Himself looked solemn at me and nodded: "That’s exactly what they _do_ think, Morningdew. He was paid and evidently paid high. Whoever the ’Other Man’ was he could afford to be extravagant in his accomplice. Their idea is that Ford was engaged for his superior strength, and demanded a big retainer in advance." "What a terrible man," I murmured and thought of him standing in the doorway smiling at me like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. "He’s a regular gunman." "Worse than a gunman, for he’s educated," said Babbitts. "Gee, wasn’t it a lucky thing Iola got out of that place!" The morning after that conversation I bid Babbitts good-bye as if he was going to the South Pole, for that was the night they’d selected to examine the two offices. Three of them were in it, O’Mally, Babbitts, and one of O’Mally’s men, a chap called Stevens. Himself would turn up for breakfast if he could, but if there was anything pressing at the paper or more developed than they expected, I wasn’t to look for him till the evening of the next day. I went down to my work and had a dull time for Troop was still sick and there was nothing to do but now and then jack in for a call and sew on my tray cloth. No Babbitts that night and no Babbitts for breakfast, and me piling down town for another eight hours in that dreary room with Troop not yet back and not a soul to speak to. If, when I came home that evening, I’d found Babbitts still away I believe I’d have forgotten I was a lady sleuth and started a general alarm for him. But thank goodness, I didn’t need to. For there he was on the Davenport with his muddy boots on the best plush cushion, sound asleep. I didn’t intend to wake him, but creeping round to our room, looking at him as I crept, I ran into the Victrola with a crash, and up he sat, wide awake, thanking me sarcastic for having roused him in such a delicate, tactful manner. In a minute I was sitting on the edge of the Davenport—you’ll know how I felt when I tell you I forgot his feet on the cushion—squeezed up against him and staring into his face: