"It’s a fortunate thing he left no family." It was something to say, and I had to keep him moving along the same line. "You’d suppose he’d have married again, being wealthy and handsome." Mr. Ford, who was lighting a cigarette, smiled to himself and said: "So you would." "And I guess he could have had his pick. Maybe he cared for someone who didn’t reciprocate." He threw away the match and lolled back in his chair. "Maybe," he said with a meaning secret air. It wouldn’t have taken a girl just landed at Ellis Island to see that he wanted to be questioned. It was out on him like a rash. So not to disappoint him and also being curious I asked: "_Was_ he in love with someone?" He said nothing but blew a smoke ring into the air, staring at it as it floated away. I waited while he blew another ring, the look on his face as conscious as an actor’s when he has the middle of the stage. Then he spoke in a weighty tone: "Harland was in love—madly in love." This was news to me. I hadn’t looked for it and I didn’t know where it might lead. I didn’t have to hide my interest; he expected it, was gratified when he saw me open-mouthed. But he had to do a little more acting, and tapping on his wine glass with his forefinger said languid to the waiter: "Fill it up—the lady won’t take any." Then, his eyes following the smoke rings—"Nobody had an idea of it—nobody but me. I knew Harland better than many who considered themselves his friends." "_You_ knew him," it came out of me before I thought, or I’d never have put the accent on the "you" that way. "I knew him well. He’d—er—taken rather a fancy to me." I couldn’t say anything—the man he’d killed! Fortunately he didn’t notice me. The wine he’d taken was beginning to make him less sharp. Not that he was under the influence, but he was not so clear-headed and his natural vanity was coming up plainer every minute. He went on: "I met him quite casually in the Black Eagle Building and then—well, something about me attracted him. Anyway we grew friendly—and—er—that’s how I stumbled on his secret." "His love?" He inclined his head majestically: "You can see how it was possible when I tell you the lady was Miss Whitehall." Believe _me_ I got a thrill! There was a second when I had to bite on my under lip to keep an exclamation from bursting out. _This_ was something, something that no one had had a suspicion of, something that might lead—I couldn’t follow it then—that time, what I had to do was to find out everything he knew. "Are you sure?" I breathed out incredulous. "Perfectly. He was daffy about her." "You just guessed it?" He suddenly wheeled in his chair and looked at me, with that same piercing, almost fierce look I’d seen before. The wine he’d been drinking showed red in his face, and in his manner there was a roughness that was new.