"Oh, I understand!" "And a possible good customer is removed," Lerton went on. "So you have an alibi for Sidney, have you? In that case--if he did not kill Rufus Shepley--he must have told that story about meeting me when he was in a panic immediately following his arrest. Sid always was panicky, you know." "I didn't know that a panicky man could pick up a million dollars in ten years." "Oh, I suppose Sidney was fortunate. There are wonderful opportunities at times in Central America, and I suppose he happened to just strike one of them right. He was very fortunate, indeed. Not every man can have good luck like that." "Well, I'm sorry that I troubled you," Farland said. "And now, I'll get out--if you'll do me a small favor." "Anything, Farland." "I see you have a typewriter in the corner, and I'd like to write a short note to leave uptown." "Just step outside and dictate it to one of my stenographers," said George Lerton. "That'd be too much trouble," Farland replied. "It's only a few lines, and I can pound a typewriter pretty good. Besides, this is a little confidential report that I would not care to have your stenographer know anything about." "Oh, I see! Help yourself!" Farland got up and hurried over to the typewriter. He put a sheet of paper in the machine, wrote a few lines, folded the sheet and put it into his coat pocket. "Well, I'm much obliged," he said. "I think we'll have Sid out of trouble before long." "Let us hope so!" George Lerton said. There was something in the tone of his voice, however, that belied the words he spoke. Farland gave him a single, rapid glance, but the expression of Lerton's face told him nothing. Lerton was a broker and used to big business deals. He was a master of the art of the blank countenance, and Jim Farland knew it well. Farland had said nothing concerning Kate Gilbert, for he was not ready to let George Lerton know that he suspected any connection of Miss Gilbert with the Rufus Shepley case. Farland was not certain himself what that connection would be, and he knew it would be foolish to say anything that would put Lerton on guard and make the mystery more difficult of solution. He thanked Lerton once more and departed. Out in the corridor and some distance from the Lerton office, he took from his pocket the note he had written on Lerton's private typewriter and glanced at it quickly. Farland was merely verifying what he had noticed as he had typed the note. "That was a lucky hunch about that typewriter," he told himself. "This case is going to be interesting, all right--and for several persons." Farland had noticed particularly the typewritten notes that had been received by the clothing merchant and the barber. There were two certain keys that were battered in a peculiar manner, and another key that was out of alignment.