“Smashed the transmitter of the machine,” replied Kennedy tersely.  “Cut the wires.”

“Where did it lead?” I asked.  “How do you know?”

Kennedy shook his head.  Either he did not know, yet, or he felt that the subway was no place in which to continue the conversation beyond the mere skeleton that he had given me.

We finished the ride in comparative silence and hurried into Carton’s office down in the Criminal Courts Building.

Carton greeted us cordially, with an air of intense relief, as if he were glad to have been able to turn to Kennedy in the growing perplexities that beset him.

What surprised me most, however, was that, seated beside his desk, in an easy chair, was a striking looking woman, not exactly young, but of an age that is perhaps more interesting than youth, certainly more sophisticated.  She, too, I noticed, had a tense, excited expression on her face.  As Kennedy and I entered she had looked us over searchingly.

“Let me present Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Jameson, Mrs. Ogleby,” said Carton quickly.  “Both of them know as much about how experts use those little mechanical eavesdroppers as anyone—­except the inventor.”

We bowed and waited for an explanation.

“You understand,” continued Carton slowly to us in a tone that enjoined secrecy, “Mrs. Ogleby, who is a friend of Mr. Murtha, Dorgan’s right-hand man, naturally is alarmed and doesn’t want her name to appear in this thing.”

“Oh—­it is terrible—­terrible,” Mrs. Ogleby chimed in in great agitation.  “I don’t care about anything else.  But, my reputation—­ it will be ruined if they connect my name with the case.  As soon as I heard of it—­I thought of you, Mr. Carton.  I came here immediately.  There must be some way in which you can protect me—­ some way that you can get along without using—­”

“But, my dear Mrs. Ogleby,” interrupted the District Attorney, “I have told you half a dozen times, I think, that I didn’t put the detectaphone in—­”

“Yes, but you will get the record,” she persisted excitedly.  “Can’t you do something?” she pleaded.

I fancied that she said it with the air of one who almost had some right in the matter.

“Mrs. Ogleby,” reiterated Carton earnestly, “I will do all I can—­ on my word of honour—­to protect your name, but—­”

He paused and looked at us helplessly.

“What was it that was overheard?” asked Craig point-blank, watching Mrs. Ogleby’s face carefully.

“Why,” she replied nervously, “there was a big dinner last night which Mr. Dorgan gave at Gastron’s.  Mr. Murtha took me and—­oh—­ there were lots of others—­” She stopped suddenly.

“Yes,” prompted Kennedy.  “Who else was there?”

She was on her guard, however.  Evidently she had come to Carton for one purpose and that was solely to protect herself against the scandal which she thought might attach to having been present at one of the rather notorious little affairs of the Boss.