It had never occurred to Montague before that such a person existed; and he turned in some surprise when she spoke to him.

“I beg pardon, sir,” she said.  “But there is something I have to tell you.”

“What is it?” said he.

“There is someone trying to find out about you,” said the woman.

“What do you mean?” he asked, in perplexity.

“Begging your pardon, sir,” said the woman, “but there was a man came here this morning, very early, and he offered me money, sir, and he wanted me to save him all the papers that I took out of your scrap basket, sir.”

Montague caught his breath.  “Papers out of my scrap basket!” he gasped.

“Yes, sir,” said the woman.  “It is done now and then, sir,—­we learn of such things, you know.  And we are poor women,—­they don’t pay us very well.  But you are a gentleman, sir, and I told him I would have nothing to do with it.”

“What sort of a looking man was he?” Montague demanded.

“He was a dark chap, sir,” said the other, “a sort of Jew like.  He will maybe come back again.”

Montague took out his purse and gave the woman a bill; and she stammered her thanks and went off with her pail and broom.

He shut the door and went and sat down at his desk, and stared in front of him, gasping, “My God!”

Then suddenly he struck his knee with an exclamation of rage.  “I told him everything that I knew!  Everything!  He hardly had to ask me a question!”

But then again, wonder drowned every other emotion in him.  “What in the world can he have wanted to know?  And who sent him?  What can it mean?”

He went back over his talk with the old gentleman from Seattle, trying to recall exactly what he had told, and what use the other could have made of the information.  But he could not think very steadily, for his mind kept jumping back to the thought of Jim Hegan.

There could be but one explanation of all this.  Jim Hegan had set detectives upon him!  Nobody else knew anything about the Northern Mississippi Railroad, or wanted to know about it.

Jim Hegan!  And Montague had met him socially at an entertainment—­at Mrs. de Graffenried’s!  He had met him as one gentleman meets another, had shaken hands with him, had gone and talked with him freely and frankly!  And then Hegan had sent a detective to worm his secrets from him, and had even tried to get at the contents of his trash basket!

There was only one resort that Montague could think of, in a case so perplexing.  He sat down and wrote a note to his friend Major Venable, at the Millionaires’ Club, saying that he was coming there to dinner, and would like to have the Major’s company.  And two or three hours later, when sufficient time had elapsed for the Major to have had his shave and his coffee and his morning newspaper, he rang for a messenger and sent the note.

The Major’s reply was prompt.  He had no engagement, and his stores of information and advice were at Montague’s service.  But his gout was bad, and his temper atrocious, and Montague must be warned in advance that his doctors permitted him neither mushrooms nor meat.