"It's worse than a scrape! It's something beyond the pale; it's the sort of thing they shoot a man for, down where you came from! Now you know!"
"Yes," responded Willa slowly, "I do know. Now tell me what that check is, which Starr Wiley is holding over your head."
Vernon rose with blanching face.
"You heard! Good Lord, where were you?"
"In the furnace!" Willa dimpled irrepressibly. "Right in it, with the ashes and all! And you stood talking straight down into the open register, like a speaking tube."
Vernon cringed away from her in bitter shame.
"Then if you heard the whole thing, you know what a wretched cad I've been, spying on you and trying to get information from you for that bounder."
"I knew about that before, Vernon. When I met you leaving the club yesterday and you tried to question me about Tia Juana, you made a dreadful mess of it. I saw right through you and I realized for whom you must be acting, but not why, of course." She drew a deep breath and added in a matter-of-fact tone: "What's the matter with that check Wiley has? Is it a forgery?"
He nodded dumbly.
"Whose name did you sign? I might as well know the rest, don't you think?"