water & Eastern is a fiction," he divined excitedly. "It was created to get the island away from Adam John. The minute this paper railroad got a legal title it leased it to Boland."
He noted the date. "They could hardly wait to execute the document; and then, when, that same afternoon, Adam John shot Hogan, they were afraid to put it on record. It would look too bald—too—oh, Lord! Lahleet, this is rotten, rotten! Wherever you got it, it's rotten. But—it saves the life of Adam John," he assured solemnly, shaking the document till it rattled. "If Tom Scanlon thinks he can put over a thing like this on me, on this community—upon Mr. Boland, I'll fool him!"
Anxiety took wing from the worried face of Lahleet Marceau. "Now, Henry," she beamed admiringly, "now you are your real self again."
Harrington frowned confidently. "My real self? Don't you doubt it. I've been my real self all the time. This is just a rotten scheme of Scanlon's and Quackenbaugh's, maybe. I'll bust it even if I have to drag them both before Mr. Boland and expose them. Lahleet, you're a wonder! All you have to do now is to go back to your school and wait; and you won't have to wait very long either. I'm going to walk sixteen steps around the corner right now and make somebody sick."
Sixteen steps around the corner was the office of Thomas Scanlon, Chief Counsel. "Read that!" exclaimed Henry, bursting in upon him.
Scanlon's sparse brows were elevated in surprise and his astonished features mirrored some very quick thinking. "I have read it," he exclaimed grumpily.
