has
told you, it occurred within a few steps of my office. So far, too,
the police seem completely at a loss."

"Ah!" she went on, shaking her head, "your police, I am afraid they
are not very clever. It is too bad, but I am afraid that it is so.
Tell me, Mr. Laverick, is this, then, a very lonely spot where your
offices are?"

"Not at all," Laverick replied. "On the contrary, in the daytime
it might be called the heart of the city--of the money-making part
of the city, at any rate. Only this thing, you see, seems to have
taken place very late at night."

"When all the offices were closed," she remarked.

"Most of them," Laverick answered. "Mine, as it happened, was open
late that night. I passed the spot within half-an-hour or so of
the time when the murder must have been committed."

"But that is terrible!" she declared, shaking her head. "Tell me,
Mr. Laverick, if I drive to your office some morning you will show
me this place,--yes?"

"If you are in earnest, Mademoiselle, I will certainly do so, but
there is nothing there. It is just a passage."

"You give me your address," she insisted, "and I think that I will
come. You are a stockbroker, Mr. Bellamy tells me. Well, sometimes
I have a good deal of money to invest. I come to you and you will
give me your advice. So! You have a card!"

Laverick found one and scribbled his city address upon it. She
thanked him and once more held out the tips of her fingers.

"So I shall see you again some day, Mr. Laverick."

He bowed and recrossed the room. Bellamy was standing talking to
Zoe.

"Well," he asked, as Laverick returned, "are you, too, going to
throw yourself beneath the car?"

Laverick shook his head.

"I do not think so," he answered. "Our acquaintance promises to be
a business one. Mademoiselle spoke of investing some money though
me."

Bellamy laughed.

"Then you have kept your heart," he remarked. "Ah, well, you have
every reason!"

He bowed to Zoe, nodded to Laverick, and returned to his place.
Laverick looked after him a little compassionately.

"Poor fellow," he said.

"Who is he?"

"He has some sort of a Government appointment," Laverick answered.
"They say he is hopelessly in love with Mademoiselle Idiale."

"Why not?" Zoe exclaimed. "He is nice. She must care for some
one. Why do you pity him?"

"They say, too, that she has no more heart than a stone," Laverick
continued, "and that never a man has had even a