“Why, he let you into a corner, don't y' know! He had been quietly buying Blackberry for months. He had the whole stock of the road in his safe; and you, in the most innocent way imaginable, sold thousands of shares. Now when you sell a stock, you must buy; you must, really! And there was no one from whom to buy save our sagacious friend. Gad! as the business stood, old chap, he might have had the coat off your back!” And Morton glared in horror over the disgrace of the situation. While I took no more than a glimmer of Morton's meaning, two things were made clear. The Blackberry president had stripped me of my millions; and he had laid a snare to get them. “Was young Van Flange in the intrigue?” “Not in the beginning, at least. There was no need, don't y' know. His hand was already into your money up to the elbow.” “What do you intend by saying that young Van Flange was not in the affair in the beginning?” “The fact is, old chap, one or two things occurred that led me to think that young Van Flange discovered the trap after he'd sold some eight or ten thousand shares. There was a halt, don't y' know, in his operations. Then later he went on and sold you into bankruptcy. I took it from young Van Flange's manner that the Blackberry fellow might have had some secret hold upon him, and either threatened him, or promised him, or perhaps both, to get him to go forward with his sales; I did, really. Young Van Flange didn't, in the last of it, conduct himself like a free moral or, I should say, immoral agent.” “I can't account for it,” said I, falling into thought; “I cannot see how young Van Flange could have been betrayed into the folly you describe.” “Why then,” said Morton, a bit wearily, “I have but to say over what you've heard from me before. Young Van Flange was in no sort that man of gifts you held him to be; now really, he wasn't, don't y' know! Anyone might have hoodwinked him. Besides, he didn't keep up with the markets. While I think it beastly bad form to go talking against a chap when he's absent, the truth is, the weak-faced beggar went much more to Barclay than to Wall Street. However, that is only hearsay; I didn't follow young Van Flange to Barclay Street nor meet him across a faro layout by way of verification.” Morton was right; and I was to hear a worse tale, and that from Inspector McCue. “Would have been here before,” said Inspector McCue when he came to report, “but I wanted to see our party aboard ship, and outside Sandy Hook light, so that I might report the job cleaned up.” Then clearing his throat, and stating everything in the present tense, after the police manner, Inspector McCue went on. “When you ask me can I locate our party, I says to myself, 'Sure thing!' and I'll put you on to why. Our party is a dope fiend; it's a horse to a hen at that very time he can be turned up in some Chink joint.” “Opium?” I asked in astonishment. I had never harbored the thought.