“Not guilty,” Hawley replied. “If you suspect that I have been near your desk, you are mistaken. Don’t ask me how I got the information, because that’s a secret I am not at liberty to disclose. We newspaper men have our own little methods of finding out things. I give you my word of honor, though, that I haven’t seen the letters. If I had, perhaps I shouldn’t be here now.” He suddenly dropped his aggressive manner. “I haven’t come to reproach you, my dear Miss Throgmorton, for the way you and your wily friend, the señora, have deluded me. I have come to talk business with you.”
“Business!” Gale heard the girl exclaim, with an inflection of astonishment.
“Yes. I have come to return good for evil by offering you a chance to make a nice little sum of pin money. I might as well be frank with you: The scoop would be worth a lot to the paper I represent. The Sentinel would pay handsomely for the privilege of reproducing that correspondence. If you will give me an opportunity to photograph those letters, and will promise that no other newspaper man shall see them, I will——”
What the great newspaper was prepared to offer in return for such an accommodation Gale did not learn, for before the sentence was finished he was on his way back to the house. It had suddenly occurred to him that there was a delicate little job which required his immediate attention.
CHAPTER XXI.
HOW IT WORKED.
Half an hour later, Virginia Throgmorton entered the legation library and, stepping up to a dainty little mahogany desk in a corner of the room, opened one of the drawers and uttered an exclamation of dismay.
Gale, who was seated at a table in the center of the room, looked up from the letter he was writing, and regarded her solicitously. “Anything wrong?” he inquired.
“It was horribly careless of me to leave the key in the lock,” the girl murmured, as though speaking more to herself than to the reporter. “Still, I cannot imagine who could have taken them. It is most mysterious.”
“Lost anything?” Gale asked curiously.
Virginia hesitated. Then, with sudden decision: “Yes; some letters are missing from my desk—very important letters.”