And this devil of a Fowler turns round and says Harry made way with it and produces Brown as a witness.  And, by the lord, the court believed them!  My brother killed himself.”  Curly cleared his throat.  “It wasn’t six months after that that Fowler and Brown, who left the state right after the tragedy, bought a couple of newspapers.  They claimed they got the money from some oil wells they’d struck in Mexico.”

“How is it the country at large doesn’t know of Fowler’s association with Brown?” asked Enoch.

“Oh, they didn’t stay pardners as far as the public knows, but a few years.  They were too clever!  They gave out that they’d had a split and they say nobody ever sees them together.  All the same, even when they were seeming to ignore him, the Brown papers have been making Fowler.”

“And you want to clear your brother’s name,” said Enoch thoughtfully.  “That ought not to be difficult.  You could probably do it yourself, if you could give the time, and were clever at sleuthing.  The papers in the case should be accessible to you.”

“Shucks!” exclaimed Curly.  “I wouldn’t go at it that way at all.  I got something real on Fowler and Brown and I want to use it to make them confess.”

“Sounds like blackmail,” said Enoch.

“Sure!  That’s where I need a lawyer!  Now, I happen to know a personal weakness of Fowler’s—­”

“Don’t go after him on that!” Enoch’s voice was peremptory.  “If he’s done evil to some one else, throw the light of day on his crime, but if by his weakness you mean only some sin he commits against himself, keep off.  A man, even a crook, has a right to that much privacy.”

“Did Brown ever have decency toward a man’s seclusion?” demanded Curly.

“No!” half shouted Enoch.  “But to punish him don’t turn yourself into the same kind of a skunk he is.  Kill him if you have to.  Don’t be a filthy scandal monger like Brown!”

“You speak as if you knew the gentleman,” grunted Mack.

“I don’t know him,” retorted Enoch, “except as the world knows him.”

“Then you don’t know him, or Fowler either,” said Curly.  “But I happen to have discovered something that both those gentlemen have been mixed up in, in Mexico, something—­oh, by Jove, but it’s racy!”

“You’ve managed to keep it to yourself, so far,” said Mack.

“Meaning I’d better continue to do so!  Only so long as it serves my purpose, Mack.  When I get ready to raise hell about Fowler’s and Brown’s ears, no consideration for decency will stop me.  I’ll be just as merciful to them as they were to Harry.  No more!  I’ll string their dirty linen from the Atlantic to the Pacific.  His and Brown’s!  But I want money enough to do it right.  No little piker splurge they can buy up!  I’ll have those two birds weeping blood!”

Enoch moistened his lips.  “What’s the story, Curly?” he asked evenly.

Curly filled and lighted his pipe.  But before he could answer Enoch, Mack said;