She had started the machine again.  Whose voice was it calling Bella?  Constance was looking fixedly at Drummond.  He shifted uneasily.

“How much is he in for now?” pursued the voice.

Halsey gasped.  It was Drummond’s own voice.

“Two hundred and fifty shares,” replied Bella’s voice.

“Good.  Keep at him.  Don’t lose him.  To-night I’ll drop in.”

“And your client will make good?” she anxiously.

“Absolutely.  We will pay five thousand dollars for the evidence that will convict him.”

Constance’s little audience was stunned.  But she did not let the telegraphone pause.  Skipping some unimportant calls, she began again.

This was a call from Bella to Watson.

“Ross, that fellow Drummond called up to-day.”

“Yes?”

“He is going to pull it off to-night.  His client will make good—­ five thousand if they catch Halsey with the goods.  How about it?”

“Pretty soft—­eh, Bella?” came back from Watson.

“My God! it’s a plant!” exclaimed Halsey, staggering and dropping heavily into a chair.  “I’m ruined.  There is no way out!”

“Wait,” interrupted Constance.  “Here’s another call.  It may serve to explain why luck was with me to-night.  I came prepared.”

“Yes, Mrs. LeMar,” came another strange voice from the machine.  “We’d do anything for Mr. Watson.  What is it—­a pack of strippers?”

“Yes.  The aces stripped from the ends, the kings from the sides.”

The group looked eagerly at Constance.

“From the maker of fake gambling apparatus, I find,” she explained, shutting off the machine.  “They were ordering from him cards cut or trimmed so that certain ones could be readily drawn from the deck, or ‘stripped.’  Small wedge-shaped strips are trimmed off the edges of all the other cards, leaving the aces, say, projecting just the most minute fraction of an inch beyond the others.  Everything is done carefully.  The rounded edges at the corners are recut to look right.  When the cards are shuffled the aces protrude a trifle over the edges of the other cards.  It is a simple matter for the dealer to draw or strip out as many aces as he wants, stack them on the bottom of the pack as he shuffles the cards, and draw them from the bottom whenever he wants them.  Strippers are one of the newest things in swindling.  Marked cards are out of date.  But some decks have the aces stripped from the ends, the kings from the sides.  With this pack, as you can see, a sucker can be dealt out the kings, while the house player gets the aces.”

Drummond brazened it out.  With a muttered oath he turned to Watson again.  “What rot is this?  The stock, Watson,” he repeated.  “Where is that stock I heard them talking about?”

Mrs. Noble, forgetting all now but Halsey, paled.  Bella LeMar was fumbling at her gold mesh bag.  She gave a sudden, suppressed little scream.