“‘Go to the devil! Here’s your check––you can get it certified at the bank. Now get out and don’t bother me again or you’ll find out I’m not the weak-minded fool you take me for. Stick to the small fry, Paddington. They’re your game, but don’t fish for salmon with a trout-fly.’
“‘Thanks, old man. I always knew I could call on you in an emergency. I only hope my tip is a straight one and I don’t go short on the market. If I do––’
“‘Don’t come to me! I tell you, Paddington, you can’t play me for a sucker. That’s the last cent you’ll ever get out of me. It suits me now to pay for your silence because, as you very well know, I don’t care to inform 133 my colleagues or have them informed that I acted independently of them; but I’ve paid all that your knowledge is worth, and more.’
“‘It might have been worth even more to others than to you or your colleagues. For instance––’
“Then Billy came up behind me and whistled,” concluded Miss Hefferman, as she closed her note-book. “Shall I transcribe this for you, Mr. Blaine? We have a typewriter at the club.”
“No, I will take the note-book with me as it is and lock it in my safe at the office. Please hold yourself in readiness to come down and transcribe it whenever it may be necessary for me to send for you. You have done splendidly, Miss Hefferman. You must not feel badly over having been discovered and dismissed. You have rendered Miss Lawton a valuable service for which she will be the first to thank you. Telephone me if anyone attempts to approach you about this affair, or if anything unusual should occur.”
Scarcely an hour later, when Henry Blaine placed the receiver at his ear in response to the insistent summons of the ’phone, her voice came to him again over the wire.
“Mr. Blaine, I am at the club, but I thought you should know that after all, I was––what is that you say––shadowed this morning. Just a little way from Mead & Rathbun’s my hand-bag was cut from my arm. It was lucky, hein, that you took the note-book with you? As for me, I go out no more for any positions. I go back soon as ever I can, by Germany.”