“I wish you’d close the window,” she said at last.  “Those crazy Wilkinson kids make such a racket.  I want to tell you something.”

“All right.”  He closed the window and stood looking down at her.  “Are you sure you want me to hear it?” he asked gravely.

“Yes.  It is not about myself.  I’ve been reading the newspapers while I’ve been shut away up there, Willy.  It kept me from thinking.  And if things are as bad as they say I’d better tell you, even if I get into trouble doing it.  I will, probably.  Murder’s nothing to them.”

“Who are ’them’?”

“You get the police to search the Myers Housecleaning Company, in the Searing Building.”

“Don’t you think you’d better tell me more than that?  The police will want something definite to go on.”

She hesitated.

“I don’t know very much.  I met somebody there, once or twice, at night.  And I know there’s a telephone hidden in the drawer of the desk in the back room.  I swore not to tell, but that doesn’t matter now.  Tell them to examine the safe, too.  I don’t know what’s in it.  Dynamite, maybe.”

“What makes you think the company is wrong?  A hidden telephone isn’t much to go on.”

“When a fellow’s had a drink or two, he’s likely to talk,” she said briefly, and before that sordid picture Willy Cameron was silent.  After a time he said: 

“You won’t tell me the name of the man you met there?”

“No.  Don’t ask me, Willy.  That’s between him and me.”  He got up and took a restless turn or two about the little rooms.  Edith’s problem had begun to obsess him.  Not for long would it be possible to keep her condition from Mrs. Boyd.  He was desperately at a loss for some course to pursue.

“Have you ever thought,” he said at last, “that this man, whoever he is, ought to marry you?”

Edith’s face set like a flint.

“I don’t want to marry him,” she said.  “I wouldn’t marry him if he was the last man on earth.”

He knew very little of Edith’s past.  In his own mind he had fixed on Louis Akers, but he could not be sure.

“I won’t tell you his name, either,” Edith added, shrewishly.  Then her voice softened.  “I will tell you this, Willy,” she said wistfully.  “I was a good girl until I knew him.  I’m not saying that to let myself out.  It’s the truth.”

“You’re a good girl now,” he said gravely.

Some time after he got his hat and came in to tell her he was going out.

“I’ll tell what you’ve told me to Mr. Hendricks,” he said.  “And we may go on and have a talk with the Chief of Police.  If you are right it may be important.”

After that for an hour or two Edith sat alone, save when Ellen now and then looked in to see if she was comfortable.

Edith’s mind was chaotic.  She had spoken on impulse, a good impulse at that.  But suppose they trapped Louis Akers in the Searing Building?