"No; thus far the evidence is all circumstantial, or rather inferential. But I picked up the final link in the chain—the human link—yesterday. One of the detectives had been dogging Duvall. Two days ago the senator disappeared, unaccountably. I put two and two together, and late last evening took the liberty of breaking into his house."
"Alone?" said Elinor, with the courage-worshiping light in the blue-gray eyes.
"Yes; it didn't seem worth while to double the risk. I did it rather clumsily, I suppose, and my greeting was a shot fired at random in the darkness—the senator mistaking me for a burglar, as he afterward explained. There was no harm done, and the pistol welcome effectually broke the ice in what might otherwise have been a rather difficult interview. We had it out in an upper room, with the gas turned low and the window curtains drawn. To cut a long story short, I finally succeeded in making him understand what he was in for; that his confederates had used him and thrown him aside. Then I went out and brought him some supper."
Ormsby smote softly upon the edge of the table with an extended forefinger.
"Will he testify?" he asked.
Kent's rejoinder was definitive.
"He has put himself entirely in my hands. He is a ruined man, politically and socially, and he is desperate. While I couldn't make him give me any of the details in the Trans-Western affair, he made a clean breast of the oil field deal, and I have his statement locked up with the other papers in the Security vaults."
It was Penelope who gave David Kent his due meed of praise.
"I am neither a triumphant politician nor a successful detective, but I recognize both when they are pointed out to me," she said. "Mr. Kent, will you serve these gentlemen up hot for dinner, or cold for luncheon?"
"Yes," Portia chimed in. "You have outrun your pace-setters, and I'm proud of you. Tell us what you mean to do next."