CHAPTER XXIII
"Schwarzenberg and her friends will be a little straitened for a while after this," said Taylor.
The expression "her friends" grated on Napier, and Napier was already in a restless, uncertain mood. Taylor had noticed that. Significant as both men "deemed" the interview with the President, Napier had hurried over it to canvass and sift the Hahn adventure.
Taylor, lounging on the sofa, sipped his liqueur at his ease. How did he know the bulk of the bureau's money went into Schwarzenberg's pocket? Two reasons. First, she'd earned it. Languishing business doing a roaring trade from the moment she took hold. Second, the fellow she set to watch the rogues she'd put in charge was a rogue himself.
"Oh, we've deserved well of our country in blocking up a few of those rat-holes," Taylor concluded.
"My interest in it," Napier paused to say, "wasn't pure patriotism. It's made me pretty sick to see this Miss Ellis—rather a friend of mine she is, very intimate with my chief's family—so hopelessly taken in. I had an idea this bureau business might show up—"
Taylor abandoned his lounging posture. He sat looking at Napier very steadily out of his greenish eyes.
"Oh, I quite understand," Napier went on, "the exposure is too discreet to be of any use to me."
"I should rather think so!" remarked Mr. Taylor.
"All the same, it isn't fair, leaving people like the Ellises in the dark. The mother is off to the Pacific coast to-morrow." Napier added that he was due at their hotel in half an hour. He was going to talk to them, he said.