Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/344

322 likely. At any rate, I was to gather all the evidence I could. I hesitated. My library fire never looked so alluring as on that night. Also, I was engaged in some very entertaining researches."

"I beg your pardon?" said Billy Magee.

"Some very entertaining research work."

"Yes," reflected Magee slowly, "I suppose such things do exist. Go on, please."

"I had loudly proclaimed my championship of civic virtue, however, and here was a chance to serve Reuton. I acquiesced. The day I was to start up here, poor Kendrick came back. He, too, had been a student of mine; a friend of both Dray ton and Hayden. Seven years ago he and Hayden were running the Suburban together, under Thornhill's direction. The two young men became mixed up in a rather shady business deal, which was more of Hayden s weaving than Kendrick's. Hayden came to Kendrick with the story that they were about to be found out, and suggested that one assume the blame and go away. I am telling you all this in confidence as a friend of my friends, the Bentleys, and a young man whom I like and trust despite your