Page:O'Higgins--The Adventures of Detective Barney.djvu/227

 She follows them with a letter to the effect that the dishonest lawyer has evidence to prove the anonymous accusations. The lawyer almost invariably gets the case. He betrays his client into the hands of the blackmailers, who proceed to involve the client in a criminal conspiracy to manufacture evidence for the divorce proceedings: and when the divorce has been obtained, the client finds himself—or herself—threatened with exposure, and compelled to pay for silence. They were evidently working towards some such conclusion with your sister.”

Van Amberg straightened up. “They ’ll betray my sister into no such conspiracy.”

“No,” Babbing agreed. “I thought it unlikely. They have an alternative plan, however.”

“An alternative?”

“Mrs. Harper, you say, is very ill?”

“She has been. Yes. She ’s had what was supposed to be malaria. We find it was peripatetic typhoid.”