Connery kept a cool head in the matter because his heart was not involved. He saw the wealth of Dyckman as the true object of their attack, and he convinced Gilfoyle of the profitableness of a little blackmail. He convinced Gilfoyle easily when they were far from Kedzie and close to poverty; but when they hovered near Kedzie, Connery had the convincing to do all over again. He worked up an elaborate campaign for gaining entrance to Kedzie's apartment without following the classic method of smashing the door down. He disliked that noisy approach because it would command notice; and publicity, as he well knew, is death to blackmail. Connery adopted a familiar stratagem of the private detectives. He went to the apartment one day when he knew that Kedzie was out, and inquired for an alleged sister of his who had worked for Kedzie. He claimed to be a soldier on furlough. He engaged the maid in a casual parley which he led swiftly to a flirtation. She was a lonely maid and her plighted lover was away on a canal-boat. Connery had little difficulty in winning her to the acceptance of an invitation to visit a movie-show on her first evening off. He paid the girl flattering attentions, and when he brought her back, gallantly asked for the key to unlock the door for her. He dropped the key on the floor, stooped for it, pressed it against a bit of soft soap he had in his left palm. Having secured the outline of the key, he secured also a return engagement for the next evening off. On this occasion he brought with him a duplicate of the key, and when he unlocked the door for the maid this time he gave her the duplicate and kept the original. And now that he and Gilfoyle had an “open sesame” to the dovecote they grew impatient with delay. Gilfoyle's landlady had also grown impatient with delay, but Connery forced her to wait for what he called the psychological moment. And thus Kedzie moved about, her life watched over by an invisible husband like a malignant Satan to whom she had sold her soul. CHAPTER XXX Jim Dyckman had many notes from Kedzie, gushing, all adjectives and adverbs, capitalized and underscored. He left them about carelessly, or locked them up and left the key. If he had not done that the lock on his desk was one that could be opened with a hairpin or with a penknife or with almost any key of a proper size. There was no one to care except his valet. Dallam cared and read and made notes. He was horrified at the thought of Dyckman's marrying a movie actress. He would have preferred any intrigue to that disgrace. It would mean the loss of a good position, too, for while Dyckman was an easy boss, if he were going to be an easy marrier as well, Dallam had too much self-respect to countenance a marriage beneath them. If he could only have known of Gilfoyle's existence and his quests, how the two of them could have collaborated!