"Phillips, I'm delighted you've come. There's the biggest mix-up here you ever saw. I don't understand it—nobody understands anything."
He stopped short, for Phillips stood facing him with a curious expression on his countenance, and holding out a folded letter.
"My resignation as your private secretary, Governor Beekman."
"Resignation!"
"My reasons are obvious, but they are nevertheless stated in that letter, and they will appear in the columns of the press to-morrow. It is quite beyond me to remain upon the staff of a man who ..." Phillips' voice quivered. He turned to the committee of three, and addressing them, said:
"Gentlemen, much as I dislike to follow your instructions, I have, nevertheless, obeyed your subpoena duces tecum. In obedience thereto I hand you the papers that you came here to find. I found them, not here, but in the Governor's room at the Capitol. I think this is all you want of me."
The chairman of the committee took the papers in question and read them, his associates looking over his shoulder; and when they had finished reading them they looked at each other with an expression on their faces, the meaning of which could easily be interpreted without the exclamatory assurance given by one of them: "By George! we've got the goods," highly illustrative of the situation as was that gentleman's phraseology.
"Well?" The Governor was speaking now.
For answer they handed him two letters, one of which read:
My dear Beekman: