“Mrs. Dunlap,” interrupted Murray, with a mocking smile at the detective, “will you tell us what you have found out since you have been my private secretary?”

Constance had not lost control of herself for a moment.

“I have been looking over the books a little bit myself,” she began slowly, with all eyes riveted on her.  “I find, for instance, that your company has been undervaluing its imported goods.  Undervaluing merchandise is considered, I believe, one of the meanest forms of smuggling.  The undervaluer has frequently to make a tool of a man in his employ.  Then that tool must play on the frailties of an unfortunate or weak examiner at the Public Stores where all invoices and merchandise from foreign countries are examined.”

Drummond had been trying to interrupt, but she had ignored him, and was speaking rapidly so that he could get no chance.

“You have cheated the Government of hundreds of thousands dollars,” she hurried on facing Beverley and Dumont.  “It would make a splendid newspaper story.”

Dumont moved uneasily.  Drummond was now staring.  It was a new phase of the matter to him.  He had not counted on handling a woman like Constance, who knew how to take advantage of every weak spot in the armor.

“We are wasting time,” he interrupted brusquely.  “Get back to the original subject.  There is a fifty thousand-dollar shortage on these books.”

The attempt clumsily to shift the case away again from Constance to Dodge was apparent.

“Mrs. Dunlap’s past troubles,” Dodge asserted vigorously, “have nothing to do with the case.  It was cowardly to drag that in.  But the other matter of which she speaks has much to do with it.”

“One moment, Murray,” cried Constance.  “Let me finish what I began.  This is my fight, too, now.”

She was talking with blazing eyes and in quick, cutting tone.

“For three years he did your dirty work,” she flashed.  “He did the bribing—­and you saved half a million dollars.”

“He has stolen fifty thousand,” put in Beverley, white with anger.

“I have kept an account of everything,” pursued Constance, without pausing.  “I have pieced the record together so that he can now connect the men higher up with the actual acts he had to do.  He can gain immunity by turning state’s evidence.  I am not sure but that he might be able to obtain his moiety of what the Government recovers if the matter were brought to suit and won on the information he can furnish.”

She paused.  No one seemed to breathe.

“Now,” she added impressively, “at ten per cent. commission the half million that he saved for you yields fifty thousand dollars.  That, gentlemen, is the amount of the shortage—­an offset.”

“The deuce it is!” exclaimed Beverley.

Constance reached for a telephone on the desk near her.

“Get me the Law Division at the Customs House,” she asked simply.