"Well, what reason am I to give to the Mayor of Grafton and its political leaders, for your refusal? That talk about me trying to get you out of Illington, Blaine, is all bosh, and you know it. _I'm_ running Illington just as I've run it for the last ten years, in spite of your interference or any other man's, and I'm going to stay right on the job! If you won't give any other reason for declining the call to Grafton, than your preference for the air of Illington, then the bets go as they lay!" He jammed his hat upon his head, and strode from the room with all the ferocity his rotund figure could express. The first decisive move in the game had failed. The door was scarcely closed behind him, when Blaine turned to the telephone and called up Anita Lawton on the private wire. "Can you arrange to meet me at once, at your Working Girls' Club?" he asked. "I wish to suggest a plan to be put into immediate operation." "Very well. I can be there in fifteen minutes." When the detective arrived at the club, he was ushered immediately to the small ante-room on the second floor, where he found Anita anxiously awaiting him. "Miss Lawton," he began, without further greeting than a quick handclasp, "you told me, the other day, that your girls here were all staunch and faithful to you. Your secretary downstairs had previously informed me that they were trained to hold positions of trust, and that you obtained such positions for them. I want you to obtain four positions for four of the girls in whom you place the most implicit confidence." "Why, certainly, Mr. Blaine, if I can. Do you mean that they are to have something to do with your investigation into my father's affairs?" "I want them to play detective for me, Miss Lawton. Have you four girls unemployed at the moment?--Say, for instance, a filing clerk, a stenographer, a governess and a switchboard operator, who are sufficiently intelligent and proficient in their various occupations, to assume such a trust?" "Why, yes, I--I think we have. I can find out, of course. Where do you wish to place them?"