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Rh was silence while he puffed at his pipe. At length he looked up and met the detective's gaze.

"See here, Sergeant, I told you downstairs that you could count on me, and I want this d—n mystery cleared up as much as the rest do; more, since my own life was attempted last night! But I don't like to discuss my private affairs, and I won't have my friends dragged in. Unless you have been prying into my letters while I was out of the room, I suppose our attorney must have been unearthing the family skeletons and black sheep and all that sort of thing for your benefit. However, I've no reason for concealing my friendship for Mr. Drew. I met him about four years ago."

"Where?"

Gene had recovered his nonchalance and waved lazily toward a chair.

"I foresee that this interview is apt to be a protracted one." He knocked the ashes from his pipe into the hearth. "I met him at a private gambling club over Morey's, which I understand your enterprising organization has since closed up."

"With or through whom did you meet him, Mr. Chalmers?"

"I was with several friends of mine whose names I cannot recall at the moment and was presented to Mr. Drew by an acquaintance named Stone." "Philip Stone the embezzler?" Odell's smooth, calm, level tones remained the same; but Gene stirred in his chair.

"I did not know he had attained such prominence as to be known as 'the' anything," he protested with a shrug.