Old Broadbrim, a man of brevity, picked up his hat.
"I will be here," he said. "Thee can trust me," using, as he did at times, the Quaker formula.
In another moment he had turned his back on the millionaire and was walking toward the hall.
At the door he glanced over his shoulder and saw the figure of Custer Kipp bent over the desk, and the face was buried in the arms.
Old Broadbrim closed the door and went away.
Down in his office, in the room in which he had thought out more than one tangle of crime, he threw himself into his armchair and took up a cigar.
"What have I done?" he asked himself. "Is the man mad? What is this invisible fear which almost paralyzes him? Why does he send for me to watch him for a year when he could fly to the ends of the world, for he has money to take him anywhere, and thus escape the enemy? But I'll do my part."
The day deepened, and the shadows of night fell over the city.
Old Broadbrim came forth, and walked a few squares after which he turned suddenly and rapped at a door belonging to a small house in a quiet district.
The portal was opened by a man not very young, but wiry and keen-eyed.