Zenda bowed.
"I couldn't wish a better adviser for Miss Deane. Farrar was in excellent voice to-night, didn't you think?"
No one challenged the change of subject, and until they were settled in the Walbrough library, the opera was the only subject of discussion. But, once there, Zenda came to business with celerity.
"Judge Walbrough, I have been swindled in a poker game, in a series of poker games, out of thousands of dollars. Last Monday night, we caught the man who did the cheating. There was trouble. Miss Deane was present at the game, in my apartment. She came as the guest of one Ike Weber. She disappeared during the quarrel. It has been my assumption that she was present as the aide of Weber. At the Star Club, on Tuesday, I stated, to associates of Weber, that the man was a swindler. Yesterday, I was told that he intended bringing suit against me. So I have denied myself to all possible process-servers on the plea of illness."
"Why? If the man is a swindler——"
But Zenda cut the judge short.
"I can't prove it. I don't want scandal. Suit would precipitate it. If I could get proof against Weber, I'd confront him with it, and the suit would be dropped. Also, I would recover my money. Not that that matters much. Miss Deane, why did you come to see me?"
Clancy drew a long breath; then she began to talk. Carefully avoiding all reference to Morris Beiner, she told everything else that had to do with Zenda, Weber, and Grannis. The judge spoke first after she ceased.
"I don't get Grannis's connection."
"I do!" snapped Zenda. "He's been trying to get control of the company— I'm not nearly so rich as people think I am. The company has a contract with me for a term of years at no very huge salary. I expected to make my money out of the profits. But now we've quarreled over business methods. If he could get me entirely out, use my name—the company has the right to—increase the capitalization, and sell stock to the public on the strength of my reputation, Grannis would become rich more quickly that way than by making pictures. And the quicker Grannis broke me, so that I'd have to sell my stock—every little bit helps. If Weber won a million from me——"