"On the black list, eh?"
"Exactly," and the rich man turned a shade paler. "I will give you twenty-five thousand dollars if you guard me for one year. You will not be required to make your home under my roof—I could not ask that—but you will be asked to take care of my foe if he should prove too aggressive."
"But, sir, to be able to do that I shall have to know something about this enemy."
"Just so. You don't know him now—have never seen him, perhaps, although you may have passed him fifty times on the street within the last six months since he landed in this city."
"Oh, he's a foreigner, is he?"
"I can't say that he is, though he has passed some years under a foreign sky. This man is not alone in his dark work; he has a confederate, a person whose beauty years ago nearly proved my ruin."
Old Broadbrim did not speak.
Already the traditional woman had entered the case.
"For one year, Mr. Broadbrim," continued Custer Kipp, coming back to the original proposition. "Is it a bargain?"
The detective sat silent and rigid for a few seconds.