“No; about the wife.”

“To Hallock’s discredit, you mean?”

“You’d think so:  there was a scandal of some sort; I don’t know what it was—­never wanted to know.  But there are men here in Angels who hint that Hallock killed the woman and sunk her body in the Timanyoni.”

“Heavens!” exclaimed Lidgerwood, under his breath.  “I can’t believe that, Mac.”

“I don’t know as I do, but I can tell you a thing that I do know, Mr. Lidgerwood:  Hallock is a devil out of hell when it comes to paying a grudge.  There was a freight-conductor named Jackson that he had a shindy with in Mr. Ferguson’s time, and it came to blows.  Hallock got the worst of the fist-fight, but Ferguson made a joke of it and wouldn’t fire Jackson.  Hallock bided his time like an Indian, and worked it around so that Jackson got promoted to a passenger run.  After that it was easy.”

“How so?”

“It was the devil’s own game.  Jackson was a handsome young fellow, and Hallock set a woman on him—­a woman out of Cat Biggs’s dance-hall.  From that to holding out fares to get more money to squander was only a step for the young fool, and he took it.  Having baited the trap and set it, Hallock sprung it.  One fine day Jackson was caught red-handed and turned over to the company lawyers.  There had been a good bit of talk and they made an example of him.  He’s got a couple of years to serve yet, I believe.”

Lidgerwood was listening thoughtfully.  The story which had ended so disastrously for the young conductor threw a rather lurid sidelight upon Jackson’s accuser.  Fairness was the superintendent’s fetish, and the revenge which would sleep on its wrongs and go about deliberately and painstakingly to strike a deadly blow in the dark was revolting to him.  Yet he was just enough to distinguish between gross vindictiveness and an evil which bore no relation to the vengeful one.

“A financially honest man might still have a weakness for playing even in a personal quarrel,” he commented.  “Your story proves nothing more than that.”

“I know it.”

“But I am going to run the other thing down, too,” Lidgerwood insisted.  “Hallock shall have a chance to clear himself, but if he can’t do it, he can’t stay with me.”

At this the trainmaster changed front so suddenly that Lidgerwood began to wonder if his estimate of the man’s courage was at fault.

“Don’t do that, Mr. Lidgerwood, for God’s sake don’t stir up the devil in that long-haired knife-fighter at such a time as this!” he begged.  “The Lord knows you’ve got trouble enough on hand as it is, without digging up something that belongs to the has-beens.”

“I know, but justice is justice,” was the decisive rejoinder.  “The question is still a live one, as the complaint of the grievance committee proves.  If I dodge, my refusal to investigate will be used against us in the labor trouble which you say is brewing.  I’m not going to dodge, McCloskey.”