"No, I heard it from Mr. Carlis himself!" returned Loretta, with a reminiscent grin. "He came right straight around to Mr. Mallowe and told him all about it, and a towering rage he was in, too! 'Do you think the little devil's sold us?' he asked. Meaning no disrespect to you, Miss Lawton, it was you he was talking about, for he added: 'She gets her girls into our offices on a whining plea of charity, and they all turn out crooked, spying and listening in, and taking notes. Remember Rockamore's experience with the one he took? Do you suppose that innocent, big-eyed, mealy-mouthed brat of Pennington Lawton's suspects us?' "'Hold your tongue, for God's sake!' old Mr. Mallowe growled at him. 'I've got one of them in there, a filing clerk.'" "'Then you'd better get rid of her before she tries any tricks,' Mr. Carlis said. 'I believe that girl is deeper than she looks, for all her trusting way. I always did think she took the news of her father's bankruptcy too d--n' calmly to be natural, even under the circumstances. Kick her protegee out, Mallowe, unless you're looking for more trouble. I'm not.'" "What did Mr. Mallowe reply?" Blaine asked. "I don't know. His private secretary came into the office where I was just then, and I had to pretend to be busy to head off any suspicion from him. Mr. Carlis left soon after, and I could feel his eyes boring into the back of my neck as he passed through the room. Mr. Mallowe sent for me almost immediately, to find an old letter for him, from one of the files of two years ago, and it was funny, the suspicious, worried way he kept watching me!" "There is nothing else you can tell us?" the detective inquired. "Nothing out of the usual run happened while you were there?" "Nothing, except that a couple of days ago, he had an awful row with a man who called on him. It was about money matters, I think, and the old gentleman got very much excited. 'Not a cent!' he kept repeating, louder and louder, until he fairly shouted. 'Not one more cent will you get from me. This systematic extortion of yours must come to an end here and now! I've done all I'm going to, and you'd better understand that clearly.' Then the other man, the visitor, got angry, too, and they went at it hammer and tongs. At last, Mr. Mallowe must have lost his head completely, for he accused the other man of robbing his safe. At that, the visitor got calm and cool as a cucumber, all of a sudden, and began to question Mr. Mallowe. It seems from what I heard--I can't recall the exact words--that not very long ago, the night watchman in the offices was chloroformed and the safe ransacked, but nothing was taken except a letter. "'You're mad!' the strange man said. 'Why in h--l should anybody take a letter, and leave packets of gilt-edged bonds and other securities lying about untouched?'