To-morrow morning come to my
laboratory"--Craig handed her his card--"and I will tell you what to do
next. By the way, don't say anything to anyone in the house about it,
and keep a sharp watch on the actions of any of the servants who may go
into Mrs. Close's room."

"Well," said Craig, "there is nothing more to be done immediately." We
had once more regained the street and were walking up-town. We walked in
silence for several blocks.

"Yes," mused Craig, "there is something you can do, after all, Walter. I
would like you to look up Gregory and Close and Lawrence. I already
know something about them. But you can find out a good deal with your
newspaper connections. I would like to have every bit of scandal that
has ever been connected with them, or with Mrs. Close, or," he added
significantly, "with any other woman. It isn't necessary to say that not
a breath of it must be published--yet."

I found a good deal of gossip, but very little of it, indeed, seemed to
me at the time to be of importance. Dropping in at the St. Francis
Club, where I had some friends, I casually mentioned the troubles of the
Huntington Closes. I was surprised to learn that Close spent little of
his time at the Club, none at home, and only dropped into the hospital
to make formal inquiries as to his wife's condition. It then occurred
to me to drop into the office of Society Squibs, whose editor I had
long known. The editor told me, with that nameless look of the cynical
scandalmonger, that if I wanted to learn anything about Huntington
Close I had best watch Mrs. Frances Tulkington, a very wealthy Western
divorcee about whom the smart set were much excited, particularly those
whose wealth made it difficult to stand the pace of society as it was
going at present.

"And before the tragedy," said the editor with another nameless look, as
if he were imparting a most valuable piece of gossip, "it was the talk
of the town, the attention that Close's lawyer was paying to Mrs. Close.
But to her credit let me say that she never gave us a chance to hint
at anything, and--well, you know us; we don't need much to make snappy
society news."

The editor then waged even more confidential, for if I am anything at
all, I am a good listener, and I have found that often by sitting tight
and listening I can get more than if I were a too-eager questioner.

"It really was a shame,--the way that man Lawrence played his game," he
went on. "I understand that it