"Give me that telephone," said Mercia quietly.

"You're going to play the game straight---- by me?" Asked Delbury, with a searching look into her eyes.

"I am going to play straight--- by my father," replied Mercia, in a voice so faint that the detective barely heard it.

He surrendered the telephone in silence.

"is that you, Mr. Dain? Mercia speaking. You wanted to speak to me," she said, striving to master the quiver in her voice.

"Yes, this is Valmon Dain, here," The voice at the other end was unemotional, almost coldly precise. Mercia felt an inward shudder at the cold austerity of it. Dain, even in the midst of tragedy, with the black shadow of the law looming great and omnipotent above him, was still the man of frosty restraint, the man with his thoughts and feelings under icy control. "I cannot talk to you personally," he went on steadily. "Something has happened which, were I to show myse