The chief was sitting in the chair which had escaped damage. He insisted on the caller taking that chair; Mern sat on a carpenter’s sawhorse.
“Perhaps I had you going yesterday, Chief Mern, but to-day it’s you who have got me going!” admitted Latisan, frankly mystified by this forbearance.
“I’m only backing up the talk I have always made about giving the other fellow his innings if he wants to take ’em and has the grit to put it over. Look here, Latisan, two men are never really well acquainted till they’ve had a good run-in with their fists. You and I have been standing each other off on facts. Let’s get down to cases. How did it happen that you fell for Lida Kennard so suddenly?”
Ward flushed. It was a sacred subject, but he resolved to be frank with Mern, searching for the truth. “It was not sudden. I met her here in the city by accident months ago—and I must have fallen in love with her then. I’ve been admitting that I did, though I did not know her real name till yesterday. And I did not know she was a detective, set on my trail. And even now——”
“You don’t believe it, eh? Let me say it to you, Latisan—and get me right! You’re a square chap and I can afford to be square, now that the job is done and paid for. The girl never was an operative. She was my confidential secretary, and the best one I ever had. Working hard here to pay up the debts she had incurred on account of her mother. As clean as a whistle, Latisan! She never told me she was going north. That letter you brought is one I wrote after Crowley reported that she was there—and I wanted to know why she was there.”
“I can tell you why. She is Echford Flagg’s granddaughter.”
Mern leaped up and kicked the carpenter’s bench away from him. Latisan rose, too, as if prepared to resent any detracting speech.
“Don’t trouble yourself,” snapped Mern. “I’m not saying a word against her for what she was doing up there. I trained her myself in what she called the ethics of this business, and she had been practicing what I have preached. It’s all right, Latisan.”
“The thing cleared itself up pretty quickly for me yesterday when I found out her name. But now that I know who she is I’m in hell. I ran away! I have left that drive——”
“Aw, to blazes with your drive!” yelped Mern, with scorn. “Only logs! But what I want to know is this, does the girl love you?”