"Not a single one of those remarks was incriminating or even suspicious—but it didn't take a master mind to add them together and make this note! Snaith was the only man who could add them, because he was the only one who was present when they were all made!"
"Fine work!" applauded Allison. "But there's one point you've overlooked. This letter, unlike the rest of its kind, is postmarked Kansas City, while Snaith was here day before yesterday when this was mailed. I know, because Clarke's been camping on his trail for the past three weeks."
"Then that means—"
"That Snaith is only one of the gang—the stool-pigeon—or, in this case, the lounge-lizard—who collects the information and passes it on to his chief? Exactly. Now, having Mr. Snaith where I want him and knowing pretty well how to deal with his breed, I think the rest will be easy. I knew that somebody in the postmaster's office must be mixed up in the affair and your very astute friend was the most likely prospect. Congratulations on landing him so neatly!"
"Thanks," said the girl, "but what next?"
"For you, not a thing. You've handled your part to perfection. The rest is likely to entail a considerable amount of strong-arm work, and I'd rather not have you around. Might cramp my style."
That night—or, rather, about three o'clock on the following morning—Sylvester Snaith, confidential secretary to the postmaster of Madison, was awakened by the sound of some one moving stealthily about the bedroom of his bachelor apartment. Before he could utter a sound the beam of light from an electric torch blazed in his eyes and a curt voice from the darkness ordered him to put up his hands. Then:
"What do you know about the anonymous letters which have been sent to a number of persons in this city?" demanded the voice.
"Not—not a thing," stammered the clerk, trying to collect his badly scattered senses.
"That's a lie! We know that you supplied the information upon which those letters were based! Now come through with the whole dope or, by hell I'll—" the blue-steel muzzle of an automatic which was visible just outside the path of light from the torch completed the threat. Snaith, thoroughly cowed, "came through"—told more than even Allison had hoped for when he had planned the night raid on a man whom he had sized up as a physical coward.