He next considered the handwriting of the blue-penciled monosyllable.  It was not Marrineal’s blunt, backhand script.  Whose was it?  Haring’s?  Trailing the proof in his hand he went to the business manager’s room.

“Did you kill this?”

“Yes.”  Haring got to his feet, white and shaking.  “For God’s sake, Mr. Banneker—­”

“I’m not going to hurt you—­yet.  By what right did you do it?”

“Orders.”

“Marrineal’s?”

“Yes.”

With no further word, Banneker strode to the owner’s office, pushed open the door, and entered.  Marrineal looked up, slightly frowning.

“Did you kill this editorial?”

Marrineal’s frown changed to a smile.  “Sit down, Mr. Banneker.”

“Marrineal, did you kill my editorial?”

“Isn’t your tone a trifle peremptory, for an employee?”

“It won’t take more than five seconds for me to cease to be an employee,” said Banneker grimly.

“Ah?  I trust you’re not thinking of resigning.  By the way, some reporter called on me last week to confirm a rumor that you were about to resign.  Let me see; what paper?  Ah; yes; it wasn’t a newspaper, at least, not exactly.  The Searchlight.  I told her—­it happened to be a woman—­that the story was quite absurd.”

Something in the nature of a cold trickle seemed to be flowing between Banneker’s brain and his tongue.  He said with effort, “Will you be good enough to answer my question?”

“Certainly.  Mr. Banneker, that was an ill-advised editorial.  Or, rather, an ill-timed one.  I didn’t wish it published until we had time to talk it over.”

“We could have talked it over yesterday.”

“But I understood that you were busy with callers yesterday.  That charming Mrs. Eyre, who, by the way, is interested in the strikers, isn’t she?  Or was it the day before yesterday that she was here?”

The Searchlight!  And now Io Eyre!  No doubt of what Marrineal meant.  The cold trickle had passed down Banneker’s spine, and settled at his knees making them quite unreliable.  Inexplicably it still remained to paralyze his tongue.

“We’re reasonable men, you and I, Mr. Banneker,” pursued Marrineal in his quiet, detached tones.  “This is the first time I have ever interfered.  You must do me the justice to admit that.  Probably it will be the last.  But in this case it was really necessary.  Shall we talk it over later?”

“Yes,” said Banneker listlessly.

In the hallway he ran into somebody, who cursed him, and then said, oh, he hadn’t noticed who it was; Pop Edmonds.  Edmonds disappeared into Marrineal’s office.  Banneker regained his desk and sat staring at the killed proof.  He thought vaguely that he could appreciate the sensation of a man caught by an octopus.  Yet Marrineal didn’t look like an octopus....  What did he look like?  What was that subtle resemblance which had eluded him in the first days of their acquaintanceship?  That emanation of chill quietude; those stagnant eyes?