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216 you left him the night before last in the room behind that tailor's shop on Third Avenue?"

"No." Gene closed the door and came slowly forward. "You were there? You heard?"

"I was in the alley," Odell admitted. "Your friend should see to it that the window is not broken or the shade torn, if he wishes to hold a strictly private conversation."

Gene drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders.

"I'm glad you did hear, Sergeant; that simplifies matters. And please don't call that scoundrel a friend of mine; he is the worst enemy a man could have. I wish I had told you everything before, but I was afraid of him. Now I know that nothing he can do to me will be any worse than the torture I have gone through for the last two days; and at least I shall be rid of him forever! Do you remember that note you found in my desk and took away; I mean the one in which he ordered me to do something before the sixth of the month?"

"Yes. He mentioned it to me after you and Sims had taken your departure that night. We had a most interesting conversation in the room with the broken window." The detective paused and then added slowly: "You had—er—signed your mother's name to a check, and Farley Drew had cashed it; hadn't he? Was the second one drawn on her also?"

"So Drew told you?" The young man was white to the lips.

"No; I guessed. I had heard you accuse him of bleeding you; I recalled the wording of the note, and I put two and two together."

"Well, it's true! I'm not going to deny it, and I'll face