y to try, at least, to uncover that
old mystery and to prove to the world that her father had been guiltless.

Mr. Grimes lived in an old house in a rather shabby old street just off
Washington Square. Helen asked Mr. Lawdor how to find the place, and she
rode downtown upon a Fifth Avenue 'bus.

The house was a half-business, half-studio building; and Mr. Grimes's
name--graven on a small brass plate--was upon a door in the lower hall. In
fact, Mr. Grimes, and his clerk, occupied this lower floor, the gentleman
owning the building, which he was holding for a rise in real estate values
in that neighborhood.

The clerk, a sharp-looking young man with a pen behind his ear, answered
Helen's somewhat timid knock. He looked her over severely before he even
offered to admit her, asking:

"What's your business, please?"

"I came to see Mr. Grimes, sir."

"By appointment?"

"No-o, sir. But----"

"He is very busy. He seldom sees anybody save by appointment. Are--are you
acquainted with him?"

"No, sir. But my business is important."

"To you, perhaps," said the clerk, with a sneering smile. "But if it isn't
important to _him_ I shall catch it for letting you in. What is it?"

"It is business that I can tell to nobody except Mr. Grimes. Not in
detail. But I can say this much: It concerns a time when Mr. Grimes was in
business with another man--sixteen years or more ago and I have come--come
from his old partner."

"Humph!" said the clerk. "A begging interview? For, if so, take my
advice--don't try it. It would be no use. Mr. Grimes never gives anything
away. He wouldn't even bait a rat-trap with cheese-parings."

"I have not come here to beg money of Mr. Grimes," said Helen, drawing
herself up.

"Well, you can come in and wait. Perhaps he'll see you."

This had all been said very low in the public hall, the clerk holding the
door jealously shut behind him. Now he opened it slowly and let her enter
a large room, with old and dusty furniture set about it, and the clerk's
own desk far back, by another door--which latter he guarded against all
intrusion. Behind that door, of course, was the man she had come to see.

But as Helen turned to take a seat on the couch which the clerk indicated
with a gesture of his pen, she suddenly discovered that she was not the
only person waiting in the room. In a decrepit armchair by one of the
front windows, and reading the morning paper, with his wig pushed back
upon his bald brow