Brencherly, thoroughly cowed, nodded assent.  “But we couldn’t get a line on it anywhere.  If there were any proofs, somebody else had them—­that’s all.”

“U’m!” said Marcus, and sat a moment silent.  When he spoke again it was with an apparent frankness that would have deceived the devil himself.  “See here, I’ll tell you my reason for all this, so perhaps you can answer more intelligently.  Martin Marteen was a friend of mine, and I’m interested in his little daughter, who has just come out.  Theodore Mahr is attentive to her, and I’m not keen about it, and what you tell me about his father doesn’t make me any happier.  What sort of a woman is Mrs. Marteen—­from your point of view?  Of course I know her well socially, but what’s her rating with you?”

“Ai, sir,” Brencherly answered promptly.  “Exceptionally fine woman—­very intelligent.  I should say that, with a word from you, she ought to be able to handle the situation, and any girl living.  But the boy’s all right, Mr. Gard, even if Mahr isn’t.  And after all, there may not be a word of truth in that romance I spun to you.  We couldn’t land a thing.  What made us think there might be something in it was that we got it second hand from an old servant of Mahr’s. He told the man that told us; but the old boy’s gone, too.”

Gard rose from his chair and resumed his pacing.  Brencherly remained seated, patiently waiting.  Presently Gard turned on him.

“That’ll do, Brencherly.  You may go; and don’t let me catch you tipping Mahr off that I’ve been having you rate him, do you understand?”

The detective sprang to his feet with alacrity.  “Oh, no, Mr. Gard—­never a word.  You know, sir, you’re one of our very best clients.”

Left alone, Gard sat down wearily, ran his hands through his hair, then held his throbbing temples between his clenched fists.  Somehow, on his slender evidence, that was no evidence in fact, he was convinced of the truth of Mahr’s perfidy; convinced that the lady rated A1 by the keenest detective bureau in the country had obtained the proofs of guilt and used them with the same perfect business sagacity she had used in his own case.  It sickened him.  Somehow he could forgive her handling such a case as his.  It was purely commercial; but this other was uglier stuff.  His soul rebelled.  He would not have it so; he would not believe—­and yet he was convinced against his own logic.  He had tried to cheat the arithmetic when he had tried to make her extortion money an honestly made acquisition.  And she had refused to be a party to the flimsy self-deception.