“Then you knew?” Her face was scarlet.
“I knew all. The North Star always knows.”
“It was because—because I was crazy with jealousy,” she pleaded. “It was on account of that Stone girl, and I thought he could tell me who she was and why you went to see her. I did not tell him all—not your great secret.”
“My great secret?”
“Yes—that you are not Acey Smith in reality.”
He laughed indulgently. “It would not matter now even if you had, Yvonne,” he discounted, “because you nor any other could have told him who Acey Smith really is.
“Only one man knew that secret—and he is dead.”
CHAPTER XV
THE FIAT OF J.C.X.
I
Artemus Duff, president and general manager of the Kam City Pulp and Paper Mills, paid his promised visit to the office of Hon. J. J. Slack, M.P., president of the North Star Towing and Contracting Company, about the same hour that Hammond went up to see Martin Winch, K.C..