mber that I shall be quite ready to speak to Miss Northwick.
Or, if you think best, I will speak to her without troubling your
sister."

"Oh, you're all right, Wade. You needn't have any doubt of that. We'll
see. I wonder what there is in that dispatch."

The old station master had come out of the station and was hurrying to
meet them with the message, now duly enclosed in an envelope. He gave it
to Matt and promptly turned his back on him.

Matt tore it open, and read: "Impossible to identify parlor-car
passengers." The telegram was signed "Operator," and was dated at
Wellwater. It fell blankly on their tense feeling.

"Well," said Wade, after a long breath. "It isn't the worst."

Matt read it frowningly over several times; then he smiled. "Oh, no.
This isn't at all bad. It's nothing. But so far, it's rather comforting.
And it's something, even if it is nothing. Well, I suppose I'd better go
up to Miss Northwick with it. Wait a moment; I must tell them where to
send if anything else comes."

"I'll walk with you as far as St. Michael's," said Wade, when they left
the station. "I'm going to my study, there."

They set off together, up the middle of the street, which gave them more
elbow-room than the sidewalk narrowly blocked out of the snow.

From a large store as they were passing, a small, dry-looking, pompous
little man advanced to the middle of the street, and stopped them. "I
beg your pardon, Mr. Wade! I beg your pardon, sir!" he said, nimbly
transferring himself, after the quasi self-introduction, from Wade to
Matt. "May I ask whether you have received any further information?"

"No," said Matt, amiably, "the only answer we have got is that it is
impossible to identify the passengers in the parlor-car."

"Ah, thank you! Thank you very much, sir! I felt sure it couldn't be
_our_ Mr. Northwick. Er--good-morning, sir."

He bowed himself away, and went into his store again, and Matt asked
Wade, "Who in the world is that?"

"He's a Mr. Gerrish--keeps the large store, there. Rather an unpleasant
type."

Matt smiled. "He had the effect of refusing to believe that anything so
low as an accident could happen to a man of Northwick's business
standing."

"Something of that," Wade assented. "He worships Northwick on the altar
of material success."

Matt lifted his head and looked about. "I suppose the whole place is
simply seething with curiosity."

Just after they reached the side-street where Wade left h