ts in about as few words as could possibly be used! Yes, my
lord--she told me the facts in a couple of sentences. Her uncle
disappeared--nobody knows where he is--suspected already of running away
with your lordship's jewels and Chestermarke's securities. A very nice
business indeed!"

"What do you think of it?" asked the Earl.

"As a policeman, nothing--so far," answered Polke, with another twinkle.
"As a man, that I don't believe it!"

"Nor do I!" said the Earl. "That is, I don't believe that Horbury's
appropriated anything. There's some mistake--and some mystery."

"We can't get away from the fact that Mr. Horbury has disappeared,"
remarked Neale, looking at the superintendent. "That's all I'm sent here
to tell you, Mr. Polke."

"That's an accepted fact," agreed Polke. "But he's not the first man
who's disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Some men, as your
lordship knows, disappear--and reappear with good reasons for their
absence. Some never reappear. Some men aren't wanted to reappear. When a
man disappears and he's wanted--why, the job is to find him."

"What does Miss Fosdyke wish?" asked the Earl, nodding assent to these
philosophies. "She would say, of course."

"Miss Fosdyke's way, my lord--so far as I could gather from ten minutes'
talk with her--is to tell people what to do," answered Polke drily. "She
doesn't ask--she commands! We're to find her uncle--quick. At once. No
pains to be spared. Money no object. A hundred pounds, spot cash, to the
first man, woman, child, who brings her the least fragment of news of
him. That's Miss Fosdyke's method. It's not a bad one--it's only rich
young ladies who can follow it. So I've already put things in train.
Handbills and posters, of course--and the town-crier. I suggested to her
that by tonight, or tomorrow morning, there might be news of Mr. Horbury
without doing all that. No good! Miss Fosdyke--she can tell you a lot
inside a minute--informed me that since she was seventeen she had only
had one motto in life. It's--do it now!"

"Good!" laughed the Earl. "But--where are you going to begin?"

"That's the difficulty," agreed Polke. "A gentleman walks out of his
back garden into the dusk--and he's never seen again. I don't know. We
must wait and see if anybody comes forward to say that he, she, or it
saw Mr. Horbury after he left his house on Saturday night. That's all."

"Somebody must have seen him," said the Earl.

"Well, you'd think so, my lord,"