Part 14 (1/2)

Blake answered without the flicker of a smile: ”I'm a civil engineer, if you want to know.”

”Your business here?”

”None that concerns you,” rejoined Blake.

His eyes fixed upon the man with a cold steely glint that visibly disconcerted him. But the fellow had been in training for years. He replied promptly, though in a more civil tone: ”If you do not wish to state your business to me, sir, you'll have to wait until--”

”No, I won't have to wait until,” put in Blake. ”Your boss told me to call at ten sharp.”

”In that case, of course--Your name, please.”

”Blake.”

The man slipped inside, closing the door behind him. He was gone perhaps a quarter of a minute. When he reappeared, he held the door half open for Blake.

”Step in, sir,” he said. ”Mr. Leslie can spare you fifteen minutes.”

Blake looked the man up and down coolly. ”See here,” he replied, ”just you trot back and tell Mr. H. V. Leslie I'm much obliged for his favoring me with an appointment, but long as he's so rushed, I'll make him a present of his blessed quarter-hour.”

”My land, sir!” gasped the doorkeeper. ”I can't take such a message to _him_!”

”Suit yourself,” said Blake, deliberately drawing a cigar from his vest pocket and biting off the tip.

This time the man was gone a full half-minute. He eyed Blake with respectful curiosity as he swung the door wide open and announced: ”Mr.

Leslie asks you to come in, sir.”

As the door closed softly behind him, Blake stared around the bare little room into which he had been shown. He was looking for the third guardian of the sanctum,--the great man's private secretary. But the room was empty. Without pausing, he crossed to the door in the side wall and walked aggressively into the private office of Genevieve's father.

Mr. Leslie sat at a neat little desk, hurriedly mumbling into the trumpet of a small phonograph.

”Moment!” he flung out sideways, and went on with his mumbling.

Blake swung around one of the heavy leather-seated chairs with a twist of his wrist, and drew out a silver matchsafe. As he took out a match, Mr. Leslie touched a spring that stopped the whirring mechanism of the phonograph, and wheeled around in his swivel desk-chair.

”Dictate on wax,” he explained. ”Cuts out stenographer. Any clerk can typewrite. No mislaid stenographer's notes; no mistakes. Well, you're nearly on time.”

”Sharp at the door, according to your waiting-room clock,” said Blake, striking the match on his heel.

”Good--punctuality. First point you score. Now, what do you expect to get out of me?”

Blake held the match to his cigar with deliberate care, blew it out, and flipped it into the wastebasket, with the terse answer: ”Just _that_ much.”

The other's bushy eyebrows came down over the keen eyes. For a full minute the two stared, the man of business seeking to pierce with his narrowed glance Blake's hard, open gaze. The failure of his attempt perhaps irritated him beyond discretion. At any rate, his silent antagonism burst out in an explosion of irascibility.

”Needn't tell me your game, young man,” he rasped. ”You think, because you were alone with my daughter, you can force me to pay hush money.”

Blake rose to his feet with a look in his eyes before which Mr. Leslie shrank back and cringed.

”Wait! Sit down! sit down! I--I didn't mean that!” he exclaimed.

Blake drew in a deep breath and slowly sat down again. He said nothing, but puffed hard at his cigar.