_Nehes!_ O Samaris!"

Silence, broken by a strange, sweet, drowsy plaint--like a child
awakened at midnight by a dazzling light.

"Samaris!"

Then, through the stillness, a little laugh, and a softly tremulous
voice:

"_Ari un aha, O Entuk sen!_"

CHAPTER XXI

"What we want to do," said Gatewood over the telephone, "is to give you
a corking little dinner at the Santa Regina. There'll be Mr. and Mrs.
Tommy Kerns, Captain and Mrs. Harren, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Burke, Mrs.
Gatewood, and myself. We want you to set the date for it, Mr. Keen, and
we also wish you to suggest one more deliriously happy couple whom you
have dragged out of misery and flung head-first into terrestrial
paradise."

"Do you young people really care to do this for me?" asked the Tracer,
laughing.

"Of course we do. We're crazy about it. We want one more couple, and you
to set the date."

There was the slightest pause; then the Tracer's voice, with the same
undertone of amusement ringing through it:

"How would your cousin, Victor Carden, do?"

"He's all right, only he isn't married. We want two people whom you have
joined together after hazard has put them asunder and done stunts with
them."

"Very well; Victor Carden and his very lovely wife will be just the
people."

"Is Victor married?" demanded Gatewood, astonished.

"No," said the Tracer demurely, "but he will be in time for that
dinner." And he set the date for the end of the week in an amused voice,
and rang off.

Then he glanced at the clock, touched an electric bell, and again
unhooking the receiver of the telephone, called up the Sherwood Studios
and asked for Mr. Carden.

"Is _this_ Mr. Carden? Oh, good morning, Mr. Carden! This is Mr. Keen,
Tracer of Lost Persons. Could you make it convenient to call--say in
course of half an hour? Thank you. . . . What? . . . Well, speaking with
that caution and reserve which we are obliged to employ in making any
preliminary statements to our clients, I think I may safely say that you
have every reason to feel moderately encouraged."

"You mean," said Carden's voice, "that you have actually solved the
proposition?"

"It has been a difficult proposition, Mr. Carden; I will not deny that
it has taxed our resources to the uttermost. Over a thousand people,
first and last, have been employed on this case. It has been a slow and
tedious affair, Mr. Carden--tedious for us all. We seldom have a case
continue as long as this has; i