“It seems we’re too late.”

Lorelei nodded silently.  “Don’t tell him who—­spoke to us out there.  Not yet, at least.  I—­can’t see him go to jail.”

“Jail?  There won’t be any jail to this—­there never is.  Jarvis will have to settle for the sake of the rest of us.”

Hammon’s limousine rolled in under the porte-cochere, and a moment later the owner appeared with Lilas.

Lorelei stared at her friend in genuine surprise, for it was obvious that Lilas was deeply agitated.  Her face was swollen with weeping; she verged upon hysteria.  No sooner were the four in the car and under way than she broke down, sobbing wretchedly.

“It’s all my fault.  I might have known he was up to something; but I didn’t think he’d dare—­” she managed to say.

“He?  Who?” Merkle asked her.

“Max Melcher.  This is his doing.”

“What makes you think so?”

“He as much as told me.  If I hadn’t been a fool I’d have guessed, but he—­Oh, I could kill myself!” She burst into strangling sobs and hysteric laughter.

“Why did you let him come to the dressing-room?” Lorelei inquired.

“He’s been doing it for years.  I’ve always—­known him.  We were—­ engaged.”

Hammon verified this.  “That’s right.  They were engaged when I met her.  She didn’t know the sort of ruffian he is till I proved it.  She’s afraid of him, and he knows it.”

“I tried to break with him, but he wouldn’t let me, and I’ve had to be nice to him.  He’d have me murdered if I—­”

“Rot!” Merkle exclaimed, testily.

“Rot, eh?” Jarvis answered.  “He’s done as much, more than once; but he’s so powerful that nobody can get him.  He’s the king of his ward; he keeps a gang of gunmen on the East Side, and he’s the worst thug in the city.”

Lilas substantiated this, giving further details as to Melcher’s reputation, and then broke down again, weeping with such miserable abandon that Lorelei for the first time began to doubt her own previous convictions.  It seemed incredible that such emotion could be counterfeit, and Lilas’s plausible explanations did indeed make it appear that Melcher was the resentful victim of an infatuation.  Lorelei cast a troubled glance at Merkle and found that he, too, gave signs of uncertainty.

Hammon soothed his charmer in his clumsy, elephantine way, showing that, despite Merkle’s recent insinuations, he still trusted her.  “This is the only woman who ever cared for me, John,” he explained, after some hesitation, “and we’re going to stick together.  We have no secrets.”

“Your little Fifth Avenue establishment rather complicates matters, doesn’t it?  What are you going to do about that?” Merkle inquired.

“This thing—­to-night—­is likely to settle the matter for me.  You know the kind of home life I’ve led for twenty years, and you know I wouldn’t regret any change.  When a man goes ahead and his wife stands still the right and wrong of what either chooses to do is hard to settle.  At any rate, it has ceased to concern me.  I want a few years of happiness and companionship before I die.  I’m selfish—­I’ll pay the price.”