"He wasn't a former secretary then."
"To young Ashton, at that time my secretary. Where was it?"
"In there," muttered Blake, jerking his thumb towards the empty anteroom. "I had to butt in to get even that far."
"Why didn't you show your receipt when you applied for your plans?"
"Hadn't a receipt."
"You didn't take a receipt?"
"And after that Q. T. survey, too!" thrust Blake. "I sure did play the fool, didn't I? But I was all up in the air over the way I had worked out that central span, and didn't think of anything but the committee you'd appointed to pass on the competing plans. Those judges were all right. I knew they'd be square."
"Sure you had any plans? Where's your proof?" demanded Mr. Leslie with a shrewdness that won a sarcastic grin from Blake.
"Don't fash yourself," he jeered. "You're safe—legally. Of course my scratch copy of them went down in the steamer. The fact I wrote Griffith about them before the contest wouldn't cut any ice—with your lawyers across the table from any I could afford to hire."
"Griffith knows about your plans?"