Presently Miriam turned to Shirley, and said regretfully:--

"You ought not to have come, Shirley. Perhaps you had better not stay."

Shirley looked narrowly at Challoner and at his wife. After a moment she inquired:--

"Don't you want me to stay?"

"Yes, yes, of course we do," Miriam a.s.sured her, "but you don't want to stay, do you?"

"Indeed I do," was the girl's quick answer.

"What good will it do," sighed Miriam; but, nevertheless, she found herself clinging to the girl as she did in every crisis when Shirley happened to be on hand.

"Do you suppose I'd miss being in at the death?" said Shirley after a moment.

"At the death?"

"Yes, I could see him hanged, drawn and quartered!" she exclaimed, with mock ferociousness.

Meanwhile, Mixley and McGrath were still holding their desultory conversation upon the situation of the day.

"They said," Mixley remarked to the other, "that the chief was politically dead after he had blackjacked the organisation; maybe he was--maybe he is, but he fights all right."

"He certainly cleaned things up," admitted McGrath, feeling of his biceps. "We helped him, eh?"

"He didn't do a thing to Cradlebaugh's," mused Mixley.

"Nor to the machine," smiled McGrath.

"Well, anyhow," said Mixley, "if he hasn't got the machine and the brewers and the twenty-five-thousand-dollar a.s.semblymen back of him, he's got the people, all right. They know he's honest."

"Oh, yes, he's honest, and they know it," a.s.sented the other. "But hang it! The people can't get him into the Senate. It takes more than the people--it takes good money to do that. At least," he added emphatically, "it always has, up to date."

Mixley shook his head.

"If he only had half a million behind him now...."

The other snorted.

"It's well he hasn't--well he never had. If he had half a million, he wouldn't be running for United States Senator! Just like as not, he'd be playin' golf or running a devil wagon."

"Gee, what a scorcher he'd be!"

"And he'd be so loaded with golf medals," added the other, "that he couldn't walk."

"Well, it's a man's fight he's got on hand, now, and no mistake--and with nothing but his honesty to back him."

The three visitors had been listeners to this conversation in silence; but Shirley could contain herself no longer; and turning to her companions, she said sneeringly:--

"Nothing but his honesty to back him! Why, lynching's too good for him!"

And as though her utterance of the phrase were the prosecutor's cue, Murgatroyd sauntered into the room. He looked as fresh and unconcerned as though he did not know that a bloodless battle was being fought for him down at the State Capitol--a close battle, at that.

Challoner rose at once, and said nervously:--

"Billy, I----"

At the sound of his name, Murgatroyd turned. He had not seen them sitting there, and now bowed impersonally to all three.

"Want to see me?" he inquired suavely.

"Yes," faltered Challoner; and with a quick glance in the direction of the prosecutor's men, he added: "and alone, please."

Murgatroyd turned to his men and queried:--

"Anything new?"

Mixley pointed to the _Morning Mail_ and to an unopened telegram upon the desk.

"That, from the a.s.sembly," he returned.

Murgatroyd shook his head, saying:--

"No, I don't mean that. I mean in the Tannenbaum case."

McGrath gasped.

"Gee!" he exclaimed, "we was so excited about this here that we clean forgot about it."

Murgatroyd took from his drawer a bundle of papers and handed it to Mixley, saying:--

"Look up that excise violation--right away. And, McGrath," he continued, "there are three witnesses in the Tannenbaum case that we've got to have. It's up to you to get them. If you can't find them by two o'clock, let me know. You may go."

And now seating himself at his desk Murgatroyd turned to Challoner with:--

"Well, Challoner, what can I do for you?"

Challoner advanced quickly toward the desk.

"Prosecutor Murgatroyd," he began, gulping, "it's up to you to clear me of that Hargraves affair. I'm not the murderer of Hargraves!"

Miriam and Shirley had risen, but they did not move; they hung upon the prosecutor's answer.

Murgatroyd leaned back in his chair, and returned calmly:--

"I know it."

"You know it?" gasped the three visitors; and the next moment the women were grouped around the prosecutor's desk.