Arthur B. Reeve

“ Graeme did not seem now to consider the fortune for which he had risked so much. The woman before him was enough.
"Will you?" he asked eagerly.
"I will do with them as I would for myself, better, because—because it is a trust," she accepted.
"More than a trust," he added, as he leaned over in turn and in spite of other diners in the restaurant took her hand.
There are times when the rest of the critical world and its frigid opinions are valueless. Constance did not withdraw her hand. ”

“ Mackenzie continued looking at her, as if waiting for the answer to his first question.
"No," she said slowly, "I am not going to hand you over. I never had any such intention. We are in each other's power. But you cannot go about openly, even in New York, now. Some one besides myself must have seen that article."
Graeme listened blankly. It was true. His fancied security in the city was over. He had fled to New York because there, in the mass of people, he could best sink his old identity and take on a new. ”

“ Ring me up in the morning, Graeme. Good-night," and she was whisked up in the elevator, leaving Mackenzie with a sense of loss and loneliness.
"By the Lord," he muttered, as he swung down the street in preference to taking a cab, "what a woman that is!"
Together the next day they sought out a place where he could remain hidden. Mackenzie would have been near her, but Constance knew better. She chose a bachelor apartment where the tenants never arose before noon and where night was turned into day. Men would not ask questions. In an apartment like her own there was nothing but gossip. ”

“ It is as far as I can trust a—a thief."
"But I will keep my word," she said quietly. "When you prove to me that you are absolutely on the level, that Mackenzie can make restitution in full with interest, and in return be left as free a man as he is at this moment—why,—I can have him give up."
"Mrs. Dunlap," said Wickham with an air of finality, "I will make one concession. I will adopt any method of restitution he may prefer. But it must be by direct dealing between Mackenzie and myself, with Drummond present as well as Mr. Taylor, president of the Trust Company, who is now also in New York. ”

“ And so when a newspaper came to her in which she recognized with her keen insight Lawrence Macey's face under Graeme Mackenzie's name, and a story of embezzlement of trust company and other funds from the Omaha Central Western Trust of half a million, she had not been wholly surprised. Instead, she felt almost a sense of elation. The man was neither better nor worse than herself. ”

“ You see, it all comes down to the honesty of the man."
He paused. Constance was fascinated at the coolness with which this man had gone to work, and with which he told of it.
"This superintendent earned more than he received. He deserved it. But when he asked for a raise, they told him he was lucky to keep the job,—they reduced him, instead, to seventy-five dollars. He was angry at the stinging rebuke. He determined to make them smart, to show them what he could do. ”

“ The appeal was irresistible.
"I can tell you Graeme Mackenzie's story," he began carefully. "Six months ago there was a young man in Omaha who had worked faithfully for a safe deposit company for years. He was getting eighty-five dollars a month. That is more than it seems to you here in New York. But it was very little for what he did. Why, as superintendent of the safe deposit vaults he had helped to build up that part of the trust company's business to such an extent that he knew he deserved more.
"Now, a superintendent of a safe deposit vault has lots of chances. ”

“ I have a plan. Wait. We could never get away. They would find us and extradite us surely."
She was coming out of a broker's office one day after the close of the market, only to run full tilt into Drummond, who had been waiting for her, cat-like. Evidently he had a purpose.
"You will be interested to know," remarked the detective, watching her narrowly, "that District Attorney Wickham, who had the case in charge out there, is in New York, with the president of the Central Western Trust." ”

“ He placed the stylus on the paper. She had already written in the number of the check, the date, the bank, the amount, and the payee, Marshall Taylor. Hastily Graeme signed it, as though in fear that they might rescind their action before he could finish.
"Now the securities," she said. "I have withdrawn already the amount we have made trading—it is a substantial sum. Write out an order to the Safe Deposit Company to deliver the key and the rest of the contents of the box to Taylor. I have fixed it with them after a special interview this morning. They understand." ”

“ And even if it takes two to get at the idle keys, himself and another trusted employe, he can get at them, if he is clever, without the other officer knowing it, though it may be done almost before his eyes. ”

“ It required no great reasoning power to decide that the man's trail would sooner or later cross Wall Street. I believe it has done so—not directly, but indirectly. The trail, I think, has brought me back to the proverbial point of 'cherchez la femme.' I am delighted," he dwelt on the word to see what would be its effect, "to see in the Graeme Mackenzie case my old friend, Constance Dunlap."
"So," she replied quietly, "you suspect me , now. I suppose I am Graeme Mackenzie."
"No," Drummond replied dubiously, "you are not Graeme Mackenzie, of course. You may be Mrs. ”