Kennedy was still looking earnestly at her.  “Miss Ashton,” he implored, “believe nothing.  Remember one of the first rules of politics is loyalty.  Wait until——­”

“Wait?” she echoed.  “How can I?  I hate Wesley Travis for giving in—­more than I hate Cadwalader Brown for his cynical disregard of honesty in others.”

She bit her lip at thus betraying her feelings, but what she had heard had evidently affected her deeply.  It was as though the feet of her idol had turned to clay.  Nevertheless it was evident that she was coming to look on it more as she would if she were an outsider.

“Just think it over,” urged Kennedy.  “They won’t ask you right away.  Don’t do anything rash.  Suspend judgment.  You won’t regret it.”

Craig’s next problem seemed to be to transfer the scene of his operations to Hanford’s studio.  He was apparently doing some rapid thinking as we walked uptown after leaving Miss Ashton, and I did not venture to question him on what had occurred when it was so evident that everything depended on being prepared for what was still to occur.

Hanford was out.  That seemed to please Kennedy, for with a brightening face, which told more surely than words that he saw his way more and more clearly, he asked me to visit the agent and hire the vacant office next to the studio while he went uptown to complete his arrangements for the final step.

I had completed my part and was waiting in the empty room when he returned.  He lost no time in getting to work, and it seemed to me as I watched him curiously in silence that he was repeating what he had already done at the Travis headquarters.  He was boring into the wall, only this time he did it much more carefully, and it was evident that if he intended putting anything into this cavity it must be pretty large.  The hole was square, and as I bent over I could see that he had cut through the plaster and laths all the way to the wallpaper on the other side, though he was careful to leave that intact.  Then he set up a square black box in the cavity, carefully poising it and making measurements that told of the exact location of its centre with reference to the partitions and walls.

A skeleton key took us into Hanford’s well-lighted but now empty studio.  For Miss Ashton’s sake I wished that the photographs had been there.  I am sure Kennedy would have found slight compunction in a larceny of them, if they had been.  It was something entirely different that he had in mind now, however, and he was working quickly for fear of discovery.  By his measurements I guessed that he was calculating as nearly as possible the centre of the box which he had placed in the hole in the wall on the other side of the dark wallpaper.  When he had quite satisfied himself he took a fine pencil from his pocket and made a light cross on the paper to indicate it.  The dot fell to the left of a large calendar hanging on the wall.

Kennedy’s appeal to Margaret Ashton had evidently had its effect, for when we saw her a few moments after these mysterious preparations she had overcome her emotion.