Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/120

 Billy had faith that this dramatic episode would occur in the very office of the City Hotel, and he believed that some of those who had joked him about his life passion would thereafter treat him in a very different manner.

Though I had long won these facts from Billy, I had never known him to play his game so openly before. But when I mentioned the thing to Solon, thinking to beguile him from his trouble, I found him more interested than I had thought he could be; for Solon knew Billy as well as I did.

"Did Billy follow you here?" he asked. "Perhaps he has a clew."

"A clew to what?"

"A clew to Potts. Billy volunteered to work up the Potts case, and I told him to go ahead."

"Was that fair, Solon, to pit a sleuth as relentless as Billy against poor Potts?"

"All's fair in love and war."

"Is it really war?"

"You ask Westley Keyts if he thinks it's love."

I think I noticed for the first time then that the Potts affair was etching lines into Solon's face.

"Of course it's war," he went on. "You know the fix I'm in. I had the plan to get Potts out. It was a good plan, too. The more I think of it the better I like it. With any man in the world but Potts that plan would have been a stroke of genius. But I don't mind telling you that this thing has robbed me of sleep for three months. Potts has got me talking