Phil's first impulse in hurrying back to the city had been to deliver President Wade's letter to Nathaniel Lawson, and with that introduction to find out how much Nat Lawson knew about his friend's plans. The possibility that the financier might be able to throw some light upon Ben Wade's object in placing McCorquodale on guard at Sparrow Lake at first seemed sufficient justification for broaching the matter. But on second thoughts, Phil hesitated; if his chief had not seen fit to mention it to his own secretary who was most vitally concerned, it was unlikely that he had said anything to Lawson. In that case Wade might consider that his secretary had been very indiscreet in volunteering the facts. By the time he was ringing the doorbell at the Lawson home next evening, he had decided to say nothing about the matter.

Beneath the gentle courtesy of Old Nat's welcome Kendrick sensed a strength of character that commanded deference. The young man liked him at once. The ready pucker of the crowsfeet about those kind eyes put him quickly at ease, and as they sat on the "back piazza" that overlooked an old-fashioned flower garden they were chatting like a pair of old acquaintances. Horticulture was a hobby with Nat Lawson and Kendrick's intelligent interest in the subject placed them at once on a friendly footing. It was a little early yet to see the wonderful garden at its best, his host explained after they had made a tour of it; he must come and see it in another month or so, or even in a few weeks, when the pergola would be smothered in roses.

Among other things contained in Wade's letter, which Phil had just delivered, it was evident that his new chief had asked Lawson to post the bearer in regard to Loan Company affairs, particularly to tell all he knew about J. C. Nickleby; for of his own accord "Old Nat" began to talk freely of the past. It was soon apparent that he considered Nickleby an impostor whose motives were not to be computed by a self-respecting comptometer.

"Nickleby is a scamp and I might even qualify the statement, sir, by addition of the word, 'damnable.' There you have my opinion, sum total, and one of these new adding machines cannot give it to you more quickly or accurately." The smile with which he said this faded as he smoked for a moment in silence and a grim look settled in its place. He stood up abruptly. "Excuse me a moment while I get a photograph which will serve to illustrate a little story I'm going to tell you."

When he returned presently he thrust into Phil's hand the photo of a young man whose expression was boyishly ingenuous.

"Nothing dishonest in that face, is there?" demanded Nat Lawson. "That's Jimmy Stiles. He had to quit school to find work to support his mother when she was taken sick. He came to me and I gave him his first job. I found him loyal and trustworthy; but he made one little slip that I want to tell you about."

It appeared that the boy had been inveigled into a get-rich-quick investment which had gone the usual way of such things and left him in a desperate plight; so that he had been tempted to "borrow" a few dollars from the Interprovincial without permission. This money he began putting back secretly every week, bit by bit out of his salary. He had refunded about half of it when Nickleby discovered the small shortage in the young bookkeeper's accounts. Instead of reporting the matter, Nickleby, at that time secretary and office manager, told the boy he would let him off if it did not occur again and made a great show of befriending young Stiles.

But Stiles was so systematically reminded of his obligation to Nickleby that he worried constantly over what he had done—came to such a keen realization of his fault that one night he could stand it no longer and went to the Lawson home. With nerves at the breaking point he confessed his wrong to both Nathaniel Lawson and his daughter. The boy's contrition had been so sincere that they both forgave him on the spot, "Old Nat" patting him on the shoulder and assuring him that nothing more would be said about it. Stiles said nothing to Nickleby about this secret confession and for a time he recovered his spirits.

Then came the change in management. Nickleby's first move was to dismiss one employee after another until almost the only member of the old staff left was this young fellow, James Stiles, for whom Nickleby seemed to have taken a strange fancy. The reason was not long in doubt; for though the indebtedness long since had been wiped off the slate the new president began to threaten exposure unless Stiles did exactly as he was told, even when the instructions were contrary to honest business ethics.

"That's the kind of man Mr. Nickleby is," concluded Lawson. "Cristy and I—my daughter, Cristobel, Kendrick,—have tried to give Mrs. Stiles financial assistance in the past, she being an honest deserving woman; but of late we have not been able to do so much. For his mother's sake I hope Jimmy turns out all right. But there are times when I wonder if it would not have been better for him had he gone somewhere out of reach of a man who would take advantage of a mere boy instead of trying to help him to a fresh start."

With renewed interest Phil studied the photo in his hand before returning it. The case of Jimmy Stiles did indeed throw a sidelight upon the character of Nickleby. By adroit questioning he led the founder of the Interprovincial Loan & Savings Company to continue talking of the institution which represented his life's work and in the welfare of which his whole soul was wrapped. Once started in these reminiscences of his early struggles and hopes Nathaniel Lawson proved himself an interesting talker and the hour was well advanced when Kendrick finally glanced at his watch and, refusing any suggestion of refreshments, prepared to go.

"I'll have the answer to Wade's letter ready for you first thing in the morning," said Lawson as he shook hands heartily. "I've enjoyed the evening immensely, Kendrick, and I hope I haven't bored you so much that you won't come again. You'll be welcome any time."

Phil left the house with the feeling that he had spent not only a very pleasant evening, but a profitable one. He had acquired a new appreciation of "Old Nat" Lawson and, as Wade had predicted, a better understanding of the situation which would help him in his investigations. So absorbed was he in reviewing what he had learned that he had walked several blocks before he became conscious of somebody following him. What was at first merely a suspicion became a certainty when he deliberately turned several successive corners only to find the figure still in the rear.

The discovery was interesting, though entirely ridiculous. Who could be interested in his movements? He resolved to throw the fellow off the track and have a closer look at him. It should not be difficult to do this in that district of tall hedges. He broke abruptly into a run, dodged around a corner and dropped over behind the nearest hedge.

The sound of running steps ceased. But the man evidently was attempting something to which he was unaccustomed; for on reaching the corner he stopped, bewildered by the sudden disappearance of his quarry. He stood there foolishly, staring about uncertainly and grumbling to himself.

Kendrick peered out from his hiding-place with some amusement at this discomfiture. The nearest arc light was too far away for a clear look at the man; but just as Phil was about to jump the hedge and boldly demand an explanation the other lighted a cigarette and with a shrug of the shoulders went his way, leaving Kendrick sitting back on his heels, racking his memory.

Revealed in the glow of the match the face had seemed familiar. The young fellow was a full block away, however, before he recalled the features. It was James Stiles, the young chap Nat Lawson had just been telling him about and whose photo he had been studying with much interest an hour or two ago.

Over the hedge went Kendrick just in time to see Jimmy Stiles disappear around a corner. He ran rapidly down the street, keeping to the boulevard turf, and when he reached the corner he waited until his man was sufficiently in the lead to avoid discovery, then sauntered along in the same direction just far enough behind to keep the other in sight. For Phil's curiosity was now justifiably awake and he determined to find out where young Stiles went, perhaps overhaul him and ask him to explain himself.

With the situation thus reversed they progressed for several blocks without incident. Jimmy Stiles was stepping out with the briskness of one who knows exactly where he is going and is in a hurry to get there. He did not alter his stride for perhaps twenty minutes; but as they swung down towards Allan Gardens his pace became more leisurely, and opposite the park itself he abruptly halted, looking this way and that as if expecting to meet somebody here. In further support of this interpretation he began to stroll slowly back and forth, occasionally glancing at his watch.

Kendrick took up a position in the shadows where he could look on without danger of observation, and waited patiently. Before long a young woman approached from a sidestreet. Stiles raised his hat and the two went into the park and sat down on a bench, where they soon become lost in earnest conversation.

"'In the Spring a young man's fancy——'" murmured Phil with a nod of comprehension; but he did not complete the quotation. There was nothing lover-like in the actions of the pair on the park bench; in fact, the young woman appeared to be taking Stiles to task about something. Did the circumstances justify a closer approach with the object of overhearing the conversation?

Kendrick still was debating this delicate problem when he saw two men slinking cautiously behind the bench from the concealment of the park shrubbery. Before he could shout a warning they had closed in silently and swiftly upon the unsuspecting occupants. The girl's cry was smothered by one assailant and Stiles was struggling desperately with the other.

It happened so unexpectedly that Kendrick stood for an instant, held by his amazement. Then without a sound he sped across the street, vaulted the iron fence and charged into the middle of the excitement with ready fists. The man who had Stiles down was nearest and Phil paused long enough to send him reeling with a well-directed blow on the side of the head. He leaped the overturned bench, and made for the girl's attacker, who promptly took to his heels.

Phil chased him for several rods through the shrubbery before he swung back toward the bench. But in the brief interval both the other fellow and young Stiles himself had vanished and he found only the young woman, calmly dusting her skirt. She stood in a finger of light from the neighboring arc lamp and Kendrick stopped short, getting back his breath and staring at her in undisguised astonishment. It seemed as if she was always to find him staring at her—this cold and haughty and very pretty stenographer from the office of Blatchford Ferguson!

"Why, Miss Williams!" he exclaimed, and stepped forward quickly. "Are you hurt at all?" He righted the bench. "Perhaps you had better sit down," he urged with polite anxiety.

"It's Mr. Kendrick, aint it? No, I'm all right." Nevertheless she seated herself, patting nervously at a disarranged strand of hair. "It was so kind of you——"

"Nonsense!" interrupted Phil in deprecation. "I was passing along the street and luckily happened to glance over at the park just as those fellows attacked you. How many of them were there?—three?" he asked innocently. "I wasn't sure which of those two who were fighting I ought to hit," he laughed.

"It was a case of purse-snatchin'," she said hastily with a shrug of unconcern. "They—they were fightin' over it." He had hard work to maintain the proper expression of polite interest under the direct appraisal of those grave eyes. "The purse set me back on'y fifty-eight cents at Eaton's at a Friday sale and it had in it on'y some street-car tickets, a handkerchief, about thirty-five cents change an'—a nickle's worth of gum. So, you see, it really aint worth botherin' about." She smiled faintly as she stood up and held out her hand. "Thanks again, Mr. Kendrick. I must be toddlin' along."

But Kendrick was not to be dismissed in this arbitrary fashion. He insisted upon seeing her safely home and as it was so logically the thing to do, she accepted his escort with what grace she could. Throughout the short walk, however, her manner toward him was one of cold formality, and although Phil was by no means an uninteresting conversationalist on occasion, his best efforts failed to break down this reserve.

Several times he deliberately directed the conversation to afford her the opportunity of referring to the keyhole incidents only to have her ignore the opening altogether. It was equally apparent that she had no intention of mentioning Jimmy Stiles, and he was half inclined to regret the lead he had given her in this connection. Why had she been so eager to misrepresent the situation? Why had Stiles disappeared so suddenly? What was the meaning of the attack by these two ruffians? Was robbery really the motive, or was she lying about that, too? He had seen no sign of a purse. Why had she and young Stiles met by appointment at that late hour and in that particular place? It must be some very secret matter to require a clandestine meeting. And she had been scolding Jimmy Stiles—no mistake about that.

Thus ran the undercurrent of his thoughts as he tried to decide whether he had better shatter that self-contained keep-your-distance attitude of hers with plain questions. He would have to right-about-face on the whole situation to do it, and he was not sure that this was wise just then. One thing was certain, Miss Margaret Williams was worth studying very carefully and he could not afford to make any mistakes in his approach.

She settled his indecision for him somewhat unexpectedly by stopping abruptly opposite a row of old brick houses with red sandstone fronts.

"Here's where I live," she said. "'Night, Mr. Kendrick, an' thanks awfully."

Phil raised his hat. Before he could say a word she had left him and running up the steps, disappeared inside the nearest vestibule.

For a moment only he hesitated, then went far enough in the walk to make sure of the house number, jotting it down on the back of an envelope. A large white card in one of the front windows announced "Board and Rooms." He went away, determined to return next day and have a chat with the landlady. Perhaps he might even go so far as to rent a room from her for a time.

But when Kendrick called next morning in pursuance of this plan he was surprised to find that no young woman such as he described lived there. The landlady proved to be an elderly widow who was quite talkative once she had satisfied herself that the polite, good-looking young man with the pleasant smile was not an agent seeking to walk away with some of her hard-earned dollars. Miss Margaret Williams? No, there was nobody living there by that name. The only stenographer she had among her boarders at present was a Miss Turner who worked in the office of a candy factory, not a lawyer's office at all. And sometimes of a Saturday she brought home a big box of candy for Sunday, knowing that Mrs. Parker had such a sweet tooth, and she was such an obliging girl, was Miss Turner, and getting along so well at the office, she was. Only the other night she had made the remark——

Phil got away at last. He was not interested in the fortunes of Miss Turner or the gossip of Mrs. Parker's boarding-house. He was too supremely interested in the strange actions of the mysterious Miss Williams. Darn the girl anyway! She deliberately had run inside the first boarding-house they had come to, stopping calmly in the vestibule until he had gone his way, when she probably had come out again and gone home without an escort. Or perhaps she had met Stiles again. Or perhaps——

"What d'you know about it?" he muttered as he sat down on a boulevard railing and mopped his forehead in disgust.

Well, if this girl sought to avoid him she was going the wrong way about it. You bet he would make it his business now to find out exactly what was what; also what her friend, Jimmy Stiles, was up to. People here in Toronto didn't go around following other people and being set upon in the public parks—not ordinarily. The more he thought it over the more certain he became that their actions were linked up somehow with his own investigations. Why not? The girl had spied upon Podmore, who was in league with Nickleby; she had dealings with Jimmy Stiles who, according to Nathaniel Lawson, was very much under Nickleby's thumb. There was enough Nickleby mixed up in it for all sorts of possibilities. He wondered what Podmore knew about her.

There was the next move for him to make—go and see Podmore and find out. He got to his feet at once and started for the nearest street-car line. He ought to be able to catch Podmore just finishing a late breakfast at the Queen's.

"Sorry, sir, but Mr. Podmore checked out last night," the clerk informed him when at last he reached the hotel.

"Checked out?" echoed Phil in surprise. "Last night, you say? Did he leave any message for me?"

"No, sir."

"And you don't know where he went, eh?"

"I'm sorry, sir; but he didn't say. I believe the porter took some baggage for him over to the Union Station; so he's evidently gone out of town."

Kendrick walked off slowly. It was not hard to guess whither the time-serving Mr. Podmore was bound. He was running true to form and Phil grinned as he thought of the surprise that lay awaiting in the hollow stump beside the tank at the Thorlakson siding. It would be worth something to see the expression on Podmore's face when he opened that fake envelope of Wade's with its bogus bills.

Well, he could eliminate Podmore for the present. What now? Had he better go down to Ferguson's office and boldly demand from the haughty Miss Williams answers to a few pointed questions, or had he better locate Stiles first and choke the truth out of him? He glanced at his watch. Nat Lawson would be expecting him to call for that letter to Wade and he decided to go there first. After that he would be free to follow his own investigations in his own way.

Nathaniel Lawson was at work in the garden, but went into the house at once for the letter and insisted on Phil going inside for a cigar.

"Now you sit down in that big chair there, Kendrick. I'm the celebrated inventor of a new phosphate drink that ought to hit the spot on a morning like this. Trouble nothing, sir! I was just on the point of mixing one for myself. Make yourself at home, my boy. I won't be long."

Kendrick lounged gratefully in the comfortable leather chair. He had not realized just how hot it was outside until he found himself thus ensconced in the cool interior of what his host had called "the den." A good old scout, Nat Lawson.

Phil had decided it was best to say nothing of his previous evening's experiences, but he had asked where young Jimmy Stiles was working now and learned that the bookkeeper was with the Alderson Construction Company. It was one of Nickleby's "mushroom" concerns and apparently Nathaniel Lawson did not have much respect for any side-line enterprise in which Mr. Nickleby was interested. Phil smiled as he jotted down the address. Nobody who had heard the Lawson side of the situation could blame him for that attitude.

So Stiles worked for the Alderson Construction Company, eh?—the concern that was mixed up in that campaign fund contribution that had been stolen. Question: Had Jimmy Stiles been forced by Nickleby to——? No, that was not tenable because Nickleby would not be trying to steal from himself. Well, he'd soon get the hang of things when he went to see Stiles. It was going to be an interesting little pow-wow with that young man.

Kendrick idly watched the smoke from his cigar sail towards the long box of geraniums on the sill of the open window. He whistled to the canary that swung in a brass cage above the foliage. Then his glance wandered about the room, over the bookcases, the bric-a-brac on the mantel, the——

He sat up in his chair rather suddenly. He stood up and hastily crossed the room for a closer look at a large, attractive photo which hung above the mantel in a silver frame—the photo of a beautiful young woman in a summer dress. The face was unmistakable. He was gazing at the photo of the stenographer in Blatch Ferguson's office—the girl who had listened at the keyhole, who had met Stiles in the park last night and had been attacked by the two strangers, who had taken so much trouble to get rid of her escort by the ruse of the boarding-house! The elaborate coiffure was missing; but those beautiful classic features were the same.

He turned as Lawson entered the room, stepping slowly and carefully, with a tray and two goblets which tinkled with ice.

"I was just admiring that photo in the silver frame, Mr. Lawson. It is a remarkably fine piece of photography. The tones are wonderful. Would you consider it rude if I asked who the young lady is?"

Nat Lawson slowly deposited the tray and chuckled to himself.
Unconsciously he raised his head proudly.

"That is my daughter, sir,—my daughter, Cristy. I'm sorry that just now she is not at home."