“Yes—go on!”
“Six months ago a young woman called on me at my hotel, and asked me if I had offered you the position of Chief of the Detective Bureau. I said that I had, and that you had declined. She then asked me if I still wanted you. I said yes, if I could get you. That was all that passed between us. She thanked me and went away.”
“She was Mary Regan,” said Clifford.
“She was.”
“And is that all that has happened?”
“To-day I had a note from her, without date or address, advising me to offer you the position again, and to keep on offering it to you until you accepted.”
Something was happening within Clifford, though he did not know what it was—something that set brain whirling and heart beating at a swifter tempo. “I just left her,” he said with mechanical calm. “She’s going to marry a man named Jack Morton.”
“So I have just learned.”
“How?”
“Some of my men have been covering Bradley and Loveman. Loveman’s house telephone is tapped, and a few threads have been picked up. Miss Regan believes she is doing what she is doing because she wants to, and from her own motives. But Bradley and Loveman are behind it.”