bewail her lot. She was
still homesick for the ranch--when she stopped to think about it. But she
was willing to wait a while longer before she flitted homeward to Big Hen
and the boys.

CHAPTER XXV

THE MISSING LINK

Helen met Dud Stone and his sister on the bridle-path one morning by
particular invitation. The message had come to the house for her late the
evening before and had been put into the trusty hand of old Lawdor, the
butler. Dud had learned the particulars of the old embezzlement charge
against Prince Morrell.

"I've got here in typewriting the reports from three papers--everything
they had to say about it for the several weeks that it was kept alive as a
news story. It was not so great a crime that the metropolitan papers were
likely to give much space to it," Dud said.

"You can read over the reports at your leisure, if you like. But the main
points for us to know are these:

"In the two banks were, in the names of Morrell & Grimes, something over
thirty-three thousand dollars. Either partner could draw the money. The
missing bookkeeper could _not_ draw the money.

"The checks came to the banks in the course of the day's business, and
neither teller could swear that he actually remembered giving the money to
Mr. Morrell; yet because the checks were signed in his name, and
apparently in his handwriting, they both 'thought' it must have been Mr.
Morrell who presented the checks.

"Now, mind you, Fenwick Grimes had gone off on a business trip of some
duration, and Allen Chesterton had disappeared several days before the
checks were drawn and the money removed from the banks.

"It was hinted by one ingenious police reporter that the bookkeeper was
really the guilty man. He even raked up some story of the man at his
lodgings which intimated that Chesterton had some art as an actor. Parts
of disguises were found abandoned at his empty rooms. This suggestion was
made: That Chesterton was a forger and had disguised himself as Mr.
Morrell so as to cash the checks without question. Then Fenwick Grimes
returned and discovered that the bank balances were gone.

"At first your father was no more suspected than was Grimes himself. Then,
one paper printed an article intimating that your father, the senior
partner of the firm, might be the criminal. You see, the bank tellers had
been interviewed. Before that the suggestion that by any possibility Mr.
Morrell was guilty had been scouted. But the next da