resent at those _p'tite soeurs_, as try find one _femme_."

At Madame Tibault's last words, Robbins started slightly and cast a
keen, sidelong glance at Dumars. The Creole sat, unmoved, dreamily
watching the spirals of his cigarette smoke.

It was then nine o'clock in the morning and, a few minutes later,
the two friends separated, going different ways to their day's
duties. And now follows the brief story of Madame Tibault's vanished
thousands:

New Orleans will readily recall to mind the circumstances attendant
upon the death of Mr. Gaspard Morin, in that city. Mr. Morin was an
artistic goldsmith and jeweller in the old French Quarter, and a man
held in the highest esteem. He belonged to one of the oldest French
families, and was of some distinction as an antiquary and historian.
He was a bachelor, about fifty years of age. He lived in quiet
comfort, at one of those rare old hostelries in Royal Street. He was
found in his rooms, one morning, dead from unknown causes.

When his affairs came to be looked into, it was found that he was
practically insolvent, his stock of goods and personal property
barely--but nearly enough to free him from censure--covering
his liabilities. Following came the disclosure that he had been
entrusted with the sum of twenty thousand dollars by a former upper
servant in the Morin family, one Madame Tibault, which she had
received as a legacy from relatives in France.

The most searching scrutiny by friends and the legal authorities
failed to reveal the disposition of the money. It had vanished, and
left no trace. Some weeks before his death, Mr. Morin had drawn
the entire amount, in gold coin, from the bank where it had been
placed while he looked about (he told Madame Tibault) for a safe
investment. Therefore, Mr. Morin's memory seemed doomed to bear the
cloud of dishonesty, while madame was, of course, disconsolate.

Then it was that Robbins and Dumars, representing their respective
journals, began one of those pertinacious private investigations
which, of late years, the press has adopted as a means to glory and
the satisfaction of public curiosity.

"_Cherchez la femme_," said Dumars.

"That's the ticket!" agreed Robbins. "All roads lead to the eternal
feminine. We will find the woman."

They exhausted the knowledge of the staff of Mr. Morin's hotel, from
the bell-boy down to the proprietor. They gently, but inflexibly,
pumped the family of the deceased as far as his cousin