hands roughly folded so that a section of the front
page which blazed with crimson ink was uppermost--and indicated,
moreover, by a ridiculously dirty thumb.

"Ther'y'are, sir. 'Orrible moider.... Thanky...."

The man galloped on, howling. But Whitaker stood with his gaze riveted
in horror. The news item so pointedly offered to his attention was
clearly legible in the light of the cab lamps.

LATEST EXTRA

TRAGIC SUICIDE IN HARLEM RIVER

Stopping his automobile in the middle of Washington Bridge at 7.30
P.M., Carter S. Drummond, the lawyer and fiance of Sara Law the
actress, threw himself to his death in the Harlem River. The body
has not as yet been recovered.

VIII

A HISTORY

Whitaker returned at once to the Theatre Max, but only to find the front
of the house dark, Forty-sixth Street gradually reassuming its normal
nocturnal aspect.

At the stage-door he discovered that no one knew what had become of the
manager. He might possibly be at home.... It appeared that Max occupied
exclusive quarters especially designed for him in the theatre building
itself: an amiable idiosyncrasy not wholly lacking in advertising value,
if one chose to consider it in that light.

His body-servant, a prematurely sour Japanese, suggested grudgingly that
his employer might not improbably be found at Rector's or Louis
Martin's. But he wasn't; not by Whitaker, at least.

Eventually the latter realized that it wasn't absolutely essential to
his peace of mind or material welfare to find Max that night. He had
been, as a matter of fact, seeking him in thoughtless humour--moved
solely by the gregarious instinct in man, which made him want to discuss
the amazing events of the evening with the one who, next to himself and
Sara Law, was most vitally concerned with them.

He consulted a telephone book without finding that Drummond had any
private residence connection, and then tried at random one of the clubs
of which they had been members in common in the days when Hugh Whitaker
was a human entity in the knowledge of the town. Here he had better
luck--luck, that is, in as far as it put an end to his wanderings for
the night; he found a clerk who remembered his face without remembering
his name, and who, consequently, was not unwilling to talk. Drummond, it
seemed, had lived at the club; he had dined alone, that evening, in his
room; had ordered his motor car from the adjacent garage for seven
o'