He declared emphatically that his interest in Claude Fontaine's doings had a totally different basis. On three occasions Fontaine had come between him and a woman. He did not hesitate to name the ladies. One was Lydia Dyson, another was Cornelia Covert, the third was Janet Barr. He had said nothing about the first two. He was not a greedy man. Anyhow, according to the ethics of Kips Bay, Lorillard females were nobody's property. That was no blasted secret, was it?
"But this Janet Barr's no Lorillard female," he said, bringing his fist down heavily on the desk. "Any fool can see that. And I'm man enough, to refuse to stand by while Fontaine dirties her good name."
"You don't mean to say that he has—"
"He'll do it, all right. Or why did he pick the girl up, when he's just got engaged to Armstrong's daughter?"
"Armstrong, the financier?"
"Yes. And Dupont Armstrong won't stand for a man who isn't on the level with his girl. Just put that in your pipe and smoke it."
"I know a safer place," said Mr. Pryor, gently tapping his head. "Where it won't go up in smoke."
He rose and, after coming to a few necessary understandings with Burley, took his leave.
As he walked rapidly along Broadway towards the subway, he felt that he had done a very good morning's work. He was satisfied that Hutchins Burley knew more about the diamond smuggling than he cared to admit. The puzzle was that, although Burley obviously connected Claude Fontaine with the smuggling operations, he was unwilling to give the connection away. What was the motive that restrained him from exposing a man he bitterly hated? Clearly, either a lack of proof, or some consideration of a more personal kind.
Reminding himself of his maxim that two and two never make four except in vulgar mathematics, Mark Pryor left the subway at Thirty-fourth Street, the Kips Bay station nearest the Lorillard tenements. Then he went directly to his flat.