she's been working in their interest, too. That was why he was so
complacent over the whole affair. They put her up to capturing
Bruce, and after she had acquired an influence over him they
worked it so that she made him make love to Mrs. Parker. It's a
long story, but that isn't all of it. The point was, you see,
that by this devious route they hoped to worm out of Mrs. Parker
some inside information about Parker's rubber schemes, which he
hadn't divulged even to his partners in business. It was a deep
and carefully planned plot, and some of the conspirators were
pretty deeply in the mire, I guess. I wish I'd had all the facts
about who this red-haired female Machiavelli was--what a piece of
muckraking it would have made! Oh, here comes the rest of the
news story over the wire. By Jove, it is said on good authority
that Bruce will be taken in as one of the board of directors.
What do you think of that?"

So that was how the wind lay--Bruce making love to Mrs. Parker
and she presumably betraying her husband's secrets. I thought I
saw it all: the note from somebody exposing the scheme, Parker's
incredulity, Bruce sitting by him and catching sight of the note,
his hurrying out into the ladies' department, and then the shot.
But who fired it? After all, I had only picked up another clue.

Kennedy was not at the apartment at dinner, and an inquiry at the
laboratory was fruitless also. So I sat down to fidget for a
while. Pretty soon the buzzer on the door sounded, and I opened
it to find a messenger-boy with a large brown paper parcel.

"Is Mr. Bruce here?" he asked.