She colored uncomfortably.

"Married, I suppose?" I asked casually.

"He had been. His wife died when I--" She stopped and bit her lip. Then
it was not her husband, after all! Oddly enough, the sun came out just
at that moment, spilling a pool of sunlight at her feet, on the dusty
rug with its tobacco-bitten scars.

"It is my father," she said simply. I was absurdly relieved.

But with the realization that I had not a case of desertion on my hands,
I had to view the situation from a new angle.

"You are absolutely at a loss to account for his disappearance?"

"Absolutely."

"You have had no word from him?"

"None."

"He never went away before for any length of time, without telling you?"

"No. Never. He was away a great deal, but I always knew where to find
him." Her voice broke again and her chin quivered. I thought it wise to
reassure her.

"Don't let us worry about this until we are sure it is serious," I said.
"Sometimes the things that seem most mysterious have the simplest
explanations. He may have written and the letter have miscarried
or--even a slight accident would account--" I saw I was blundering; she
grew white and wide-eyed. "But, of course, that's unlikely too. He would
have papers to identify him."

"His pockets were always full of envelopes and things like that," she
assented eagerly.

"Don't you think I ought to know his name?" I asked. "It need not be
known outside of the office, and this is a sort of confessional anyhow,
or worse. People tell things to their lawyer that they wouldn't think of
telling the priest."

Her color was slowly coming back, and she smiled.

"My name is Fleming, Margery Fleming," she said after a second's
hesitation, "and my father, Mr. Allan Fleming, is the man. Oh, Mr. Knox,
what are we going to do? He has been gone for more than a week!"

No wonder she had wished to conceal the identity of the missing man. So
Allan Fleming was lost! A good many highly respectable citizens would
hope that he might never be found. Fleming, state treasurer, delightful
companion, polished gentleman and successful politician of the criminal
type. Outside in the corridor the office boy was singing under his
breath. "Oh once there was a miller," he sang, "who lived in a mill." It
brought back to my mind instantly the reform meeting at the city hall a
year before, where for a few hours we had blown the feeble spark of
protest against machine domination to a flame. We had sung a s