rincess Irene_ on the twenty-seventh of January last."

"Oh, the twenty-seventh? Are you sure of that?" said Arthur.

"Of course."

"I was under the impression he landed on the twenty-fifth."

"No; you are wrong. Why, I met the boat myself, but missed him, although
he was on the passenger list. He disembarked very slyly, I afterward
learned, being doubtless afraid he would be arrested. But at that time I
had no positive evidence against him."

Arthur asked a few more questions of no importance and then bade Le
Drieux good night and rejoined the girls.

"You win, Maud," he remarked as he sat down. "That clew of yours was an
inspiration. Andrews arrived in America on January twenty-seventh, just
one day after Jones had a motion picture of himself taken at the
stockholders' meeting of the Continental Film Company."

"Then we needn't worry over Ajo any longer!" asserted Patsy joyfully.
"With this evidence and the testimony of Captain Carg and his pearls, the
most stupid judge on earth would declare the boy innocent. Why, Beth, we
shall get our theatres built, after all!"

CHAPTER XXIV

PICTURE NUMBER NINETEEN

"Well, where have you been?" demanded Goldstein gruffly, as Maud Stanton
entered his office the next morning in response to a summons from the
Continental manager. "What made you run away yesterday? Don't you know
such things make us lots of trouble and cost us money?"

"I'm not worrying about that," replied Maud, as she composedly sat down
opposite the manager.

Goldstein glared at her, but he was cautious.

"You're a fine actress, Miss Stanton, and you're popular on the films,"
he said, "but if you cannot attend to business we are paying you too
much money."

"Indeed!"

"No other firm could afford to give you so much, you know that; and the
only reason we are so extravagant is because you are one of our
features."

"Am I to take this as a dismissal?" she asked carelessly.

"Dismissal!" he cried, holding up his hands. "Of course not. Who is
talking of dismissal? But I owe a duty to my firm. Such actions as yours,
in running away from rehearsals, must have a--a--reprimand. Not severe; I
am not so angry as grieved; but a reprimand is your due--and that
fly-away sister of yours is just as bad."

"We went to assist your president--Mr. Jones--to establish his innocence
of the awful charge made against him," she explained.

"Bah. You can't do that. No one can save him," he replied, with triu