"
"I'll surely do all that, Mr. Sybarite; but I don't understand--"
"Well, if I'm not mistaken, it'll help a lot. Public disavowal of your
engagement to Bayard will be likely to bring Shaynon's affairs to a
crisis. I firmly believe they're hard pressed for money--that it
wasn't consolidation of two going-concerns for mutual advantage, but
the finding of new capital for a moribund and insolvent house that
they've been seeking through this marriage. That's why they were in
such a hurry. Even if Bayard were free--as his father believes him to
be--why need the old man have been so unreasonable when all the delay
you ask is another twelvemonth? Believe me, he had some excellent
reason for his anxiety. Finally, if the old villain isn't fomenting
some especially foul villainy, why need he sneak from here to-night to
the lowest dive in town to meet and confer with a gang leader and
murderer like Red November?"
"What are you talking about now?" demanded the bewildered girl.
"An hour or so ago I met old Brian coming out of a dive known as Dutch
House, the worst in this old Town. What business had he there, if he's
an honest man? I can't tell you because I don't know. But it was
foul--that's certain. Else why need he have incited Red and his
followers to drug Peter Kenny into forgetfulness? Peter found him
there before I did. It was only after the deuce of a row that I got
the boy away alive.
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