“I’m not altogether to blame.” he went on slowly.  “The estrangement between my wife and myself came long before that little affair.  It began over—­well—­over what they call a serious difference in temperament.  You know a man—­an ambitious man—­needs a partner, a woman who can use the social position that money gives not alone for pleasure but as a means of advancing the partnership.  I never had that.  The more I advanced, the more I found her becoming a butterfly—­and not as attractive as the other butterflies either.  She went one way—­I, another.  Oh well—­what’s the use?  I wont too far—­the wrong way.  I must pay.  Only let me save what I can from the wreck.”

It was not Constance, the woman, to whom he was talking.  It was Constance, the secretary.  Yet it was the woman, not the secretary, who listened.

Brainard stopped again beside her desk.

“All that is neither here nor there,” he remarked, forcing a change in his manner.  “I am in for it.  Now, the question is—­what are we going to do about it!”

Constance had unwrapped the package on her desk, disclosing an oblong box.

“What’s that?” he asked curiously.

“Mr. Brainard,” she answered tapping the box, “there’s no limit to the use of this little machine for our purposes.  We can get at their most vital secrets with it.  We can discover every plan which they have against us.  We may even learn the hiding place of those letters Why, there is no limit.  This is one of those new microphone detectives.”

“A microphone?” he repeated as he opened the box, looked sharply at the two black little storage batteries inside, the coil of silk-covered wire, a little black rubber receiver and a curious black disc whose face was pierced by a circular row of holes.

“Yes.  You must have heard of them.  You hide that transmitter behind a picture or under a table or desk.  Then you run the wire out of the room and by listening in the receiver you can hear everything!”

“But that is what detectives use—­”

“Well?” she interrupted coolly, “what of it?  If it is good for them, is it not just as good for us?”

“Better!” he exclaimed.  “By George, you are the goods.”

It was late before Constance had a chance to do anything with the microphone.  It seemed as if Worthington were staying, perversely, later than usual.  At last, however, he left with a curt nod to her.

The moment the door was closed she stopped the desultory clicking of her typewriter with Which she had been toying in the appearance of being busy.  With Brainard she entered the board room where she had noticed Worthington and Sheppard often during the day.

It was, without exaggeration, one of the most plainly furnished rooms she had ever seen.  A long mahogany table with eight large mahogany chairs, a half inch pile of velvety rug on the floor and a huge chandelier in the middle of the ceiling constituted the furniture.  Not a picture, not a cabinet or filing case broke the blankness of the brown painted walls.