Moved by a strange mingling of anger, curiosity and jealousy, Gard’s first act on entering his library was to telephone to a well known detective agency—­no surprising thing on his part, for not infrequently he made use of their services to obtain sundry details as to the movements of his opponents, and when, as often happened, cranks threatened the thorny path of wealth and prominence, he had found protection with the plain clothes men.

“Jordan,” he growled over the wire, “I want Brencherly up here right away.  Is he there?....All right.  I want some information he may be able to give me offhand.  If not—­well, send him now.”

He hung up the receiver and paced the room, his eyes on the rug, his hands behind his back, disgusted and angry with his own anger and disgust.

Half an hour had passed, when a young man of dapper appearance was ushered in.  Gard looked up, frowning, into the mild blue eyes of the detective.

“Hello, Brencherly.  Know Victor Mahr?”

“Yes,” said the youth.

“Tell me about him,” snapped Gard.  “Sit down.”

Brencherly sat.  “Well, he’s the head of the lumber people.  Rated at six millions.  Got one son, named Theodore; went to Yale.  Wife was Mary Theobald, of Cincinnati—­”

Gard interrupted.  “I don’t want the ‘who’s who,’ Brencherly, or I wouldn’t have sent for you.  I want to know the worst about him.  Cut loose.”

“Well, his deals haven’t been square, you know.  He’s had two or three nasty suits against him; he’s got more enemies than you can shake a stick at.  His confidential lawyer is Twickenbaur, the biggest scoundrel unhung.  Of course nobody knows that; Twickenbaur’s reputation is too bad—­Mahr goes to your lawyers, apparently.”

“There isn’t any blackmail in any of that,” the older man snarled.

“Oh!” cried the youth, his blue eyes lighting.  “Oh, it’s blackmail you want!  Well, the only thing that looks that way is a story that nobody has been able to substantiate.  We heard it as we hear lots of things that don’t get out; but there was a yarn that Mahr was a bigamist; that his first wife was living when he married Miss Theobald.  She died when the boy was born, and in that case she was never his legal wife, and of course now never can be.  The other woman’s dead, too, they say; but who’s to prove it?  That would be a fine tale for the coin, if anyone had the goods to show.”

“I suppose the office looked that up when they got it, didn’t they?  Good for the coin, eh?  What did you find?”

The informant actually blushed.  “You aren’t accusing us, Mr. Gard!”

“Accusing nothing.  I know a few things, Brencherly, remember.  Baker Allen told me your office held him up good and plenty to turn in a different report when his wife employed you, and you ’got the goods on him.’  Now, don’t give me any bluff.  I want facts, and I pay you for them, don’t I?  Well, when you got that story, you looked it up hard, didn’t you?”