—it lies concealed somewhere behind Croydon’s departure from France. There must have been some unusual reason for that—a reason even more serious, perhaps, than this threatened prosecution—the clippings would tell the story.
“But is it worth while trying to dig it up? It wouldn’t be a difficult thing to do if the newspapers handled it at the time; but I don’t know,” and he stared out through his window with drawn brows. “If it’s buried again, I believe I’ll let it rest—for the present, anyway,” and he whirled back to his desk.
He wrote the story of the day’s developments and turned it in.
“We’ve been lucky,” said the city editor, with a gleeful smile, as he took the copy. “We’ve got photographs of all the principals.”
“Have we?”
“Yes—they cost $500, but they’re worth it. No other paper in town will have ’em.”
“That’s good,” said Godfrey, but it was a half-hearted commendation, and he left the office in a frame of mind not wholly amiable. The methods of a popular newspaper are not always above reproach.
“Thank Heaven,” he added to himself, his face clearing a little, “there’s nothing in my story to implicate either Miss Croydon or Mrs. Delroy—there’s no hint of the skeleton! I took care of that—which,” he concluded, with a grim smile, “is mighty forbearing in a yellow journalist!”
What further tests there were to be of his forbearance not even he suspected!
