of us for an instant to catch
some inkling of our behaviour.

"Same name as----" and Mac jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

Miss Fraenkel's face did not clear.

"We thought," I said heavily, "that this man in England, you know, might
have----" I stopped, dismayed by her lack of appreciation. She seemed
unable to grasp the simple links of our brilliant theory. We had omitted
to calculate upon the indifference of the modern American temperament to
names. A foul murder had been committed a short time back by a gambler
named Fraenkel, yet she would have laughed at the suggestion that such a
coincidence should cause her any annoyance.

"I don't get it," she said, smiling, and we saw plainly enough that she
did not get it. We were crushed. I explained in more detail the reason
for which we had ventured to connect the two stories. We could see her
trying to understand.

"You mean--just as if it was a photo-play," she faltered.

It does not matter now, and I admit that this put me out of humour. And
yet it was true. We were really no nearer an actual and _bona fide_
solution of Mrs. Carville's story than if we had simply tried to make,
as Miss Fraenkel said, a photo-play. The others laughed at my downcast
countenance.

"Well," I said, "you said Miss Fraenkel had tried them and found them
guilty, Mac."

"What I meant was, Miss Fraenkel had formed her own opinion of the
business."

"Yes," she said, "I have."

"Now we shall hear something," chirped Bill.

"Listen," said Miss Fraenkel. "It's very likely an assumed name."

It was our turn to look bewildered.

"Yes?" said Bill. "What then?"

"And----" went on Miss Fraenkel, making little motions with her hands as
though she were trying to catch something that eluded her grasp.
"And--oh! he's being held for some game in New York. She's got away with
it, you see."

Miss Fraenkel waited for this appalling development to sink into our
minds. I don't think it was given to any of us at the moment to divine
just what had happened to Miss Fraenkel. Even seven years in the country
were not sufficient training in American psychology to realize it at
once. We sat and looked at her, temporarily dazed by what we took to be
a story built upon exclusive information. And she sat and looked at us,
as pleased as a child at the success of her manoeuvre.

"Why," stammered Bill, blankly through her glasses, "how do you know?"

"I don't know," replied Miss Fraenkel. "I just made it