The secretary left the room and Mr. Ryder sank comfortably in his chair, puffing silently at his long black cigar.  The financier was thinking, but his thoughts concerned neither the luckless gas president he had just pitilessly crushed, nor the detective who had come to make his report.  He was thinking of the book “The American Octopus,” and its bold author whom he was to meet in a very few minutes.  He glanced at the clock.  A quarter to three.  She would be here in fifteen minutes if she were punctual, but women seldom are, he reflected.  What kind of a woman could she be, this Shirley Green, to dare cross swords with a man whose power was felt in two hemispheres?  No ordinary woman, that was certain.  He tried to imagine what she looked like, and he pictured a tall, gaunt, sexless spinster with spectacles, a sort of nightmare in the garb of a woman.  A sour, discontented creature, bitter to all mankind, owing to disappointments in early life and especially vindictive towards the rich, whom her socialistic and even anarchistical tendencies prompted her to hate and attack.  Yet, withal, a brainy, intelligent woman, remarkably well informed as to political and industrial conditions—­a woman to make a friend of rather than an enemy.  And John Ryder, who had educated himself to believe that with gold he could do everything, that none could resist its power, had no doubt that with money he could enlist this Shirley Green in his service.  At least it would keep her from writing more books about him.

The door opened and Sergeant Ellison entered, followed by the secretary, who almost immediately withdrew.

“Well, sergeant,” said Mr. Ryder cordially, “what have you to tell me?  I can give you only a few minutes.  I expect a lady friend of yours.”

The plutocrat sometimes condescended to be jocular with his subordinates.

“A lady friend of mine, sir?” echoed the man, puzzled.

“Yes—­Miss Shirley Green, the author,” replied the financier, enjoying the detective’s embarrassment.  “That suggestion of yours worked out all right.  She’s coming here to-day.”

“I’m glad you’ve found her, sir.”

“It was a tough job,” answered Ryder with a grimace.  “We wrote her half a dozen times before she was satisfied with the wording of the invitation.  But, finally, we landed her and I expect her at three o’clock.  Now what about that Rossmore girl?  Did you go down to Massapequa?”

“Yes, sir, I have been there half a dozen times.  In fact, I’ve just come from there.  Judge Rossmore is there, all right, but his daughter has left for parts unknown.”

“Gone away—­where?” exclaimed the financier.

This was what he dreaded.  As long as he could keep his eye on the girl there was little danger of Jefferson making a fool of himself; with her disappeared everything was possible.

“I could not find out, sir.  Their neighbours don’t know much about them.  They say they’re haughty and stuck up.  The only one I could get anything out of was a parson named Deetle.  He said it was a sad case, that they had reverses and a daughter who was in Paris—­ "