“What the devil is all this talk about crooks!” he exclaimed impatiently.  “I didn’t come here to listen to this sort of thing.  I am not sure that I believe a word of what you say.”

“Why should you,” Pritchard remarked, “without proof?  Look here.”

He drew a leather case from his pocket and spread it out.  There were a dozen photographs there of men in prison attire.  The detective pointed to one, and with a little shiver Tavernake recognized the face of the man who had been sitting at the right hand of Elizabeth.

“You don’t mean to say,” he faltered, “that Mrs. Gardner—­”

The detective folded up his case and replaced it in his pocket.

“No,” he said, “we haven’t any photographs of your lady friend there, nor of her sister.  And yet, it may not be so far off.”

“If you are trying to fasten anything upon those ladies,—­” Tavernake began, threateningly.

The detective laughed and patted him on the shoulder.

“It isn’t my business to try and fasten things upon any one,” he interrupted.  “At the same time, you seem to be a friend of Mrs. Wenham Gardner, and it is just as well that some one should warn her.”

“Warn her of what?” Tavernake asked.

The detective looked at his cigar meditatively.

“Make her understand that there is trouble ahead,” he replied.

Tavernake sipped his whiskey and soda and lit a cigarette.  Then he turned in his chair and looked thoughtfully at his companion.  Pritchard was a striking-looking man, with hard, clean-cut features—­a man of determination.

“Mr. Pritchard, I am a clerk in an estate office.  My people were work-people and I am trying to better myself in the world.  I haven’t learned how to beat about a subject, but I have learned a little of the world, and I know that people such as you are not in the habit of doing things without a reason.  Why the devil have you brought me in here to talk about Mrs. Gardner and her sister?  If you’ve anything to say, why don’t you go to Mrs. Gardner herself and say it?  Why do you come and talk to strangers about their affairs?  I am here listening to you, but I tell you straight I don’t like it.”

Pritchard nodded.

“Say, I am not sure that I don’t like that sort of talk,” he declared.  “I know all about you, young man.  You’re in Dowling & Spence’s office and you’ve got to quit.  You’ve got an estate you want financing.  Miss Beatrice Franklin was living under your roof—­as your sister, I understand—­until yesterday, and Mrs. Gardner, for some reason of her own, seems to be doing her best to add you to the list of her admirers.  I am not sure what it all means but I could make a pretty good guess.  Here’s my point, though.  You’re right.  I didn’t bring you here for your health.  I brought you here because you can do me a service and yourself one at the same time, and you’ll be doing no one any harm, nobody you care about, anyway.  I have no grudge against Miss Beatrice.  I’d just as soon she kept out of the trouble that’s coming.”