irst time he felt himself faced by a vague, but none
the less real, danger, and the feeling braced him.

"Then Monsieur did not see this lady yesterday at all?"

"No," said Vanderlyn, shortly; "the last time I saw Mrs. Pargeter in her
house was the day before yesterday, when I called on her about five
o'clock."

"Monsieur is not related to the lady," asked the detective quietly.

"No," said Vanderlyn again. "But I am an old friend of both Mr. and Mrs.
Pargeter, and that is why he asked me to accompany him here to-day."

"Then when and how did you yourself first learn of Madame Pargeter's
disappearance?" asked the other suddenly.

Vanderlyn hesitated; for a moment his tired brain refused to act--when
was he supposed to have heard of Peggy's disappearance? He looked
helplessly at Pargeter, then said suddenly, "I met my friend at L'Union
last night."

"Then you already knew of Madame's disappearance last night?" said the
official eagerly.

"No! no!" exclaimed Pargeter crossly. "Of course we didn't know then! We
didn't know till just now--that is, till this morning, when Mr.
Vanderlyn went out to Madame de Lera's villa to fetch my wife. It was
Madame de Lera who told us that she had never arrived at Marly-le-Roi.
She disappeared yesterday afternoon, but we did not know it till this
morning."

"May I ask you, gentlemen, to wait for a moment while I make certain
enquiries?" observed the detective politely. "You have not yet been
shown our daily report concerning the stations of Paris--is it not
possible that Madame Pargeter may have met with some accident at the
Gare St. Lazare, if, as I understand, she was going to her friend by
train, and not by automobile?"

Pargeter seemed struck by the notion. He turned to Vanderlyn. "I can't
make out," he said in a puzzled tone, "why Peggy thought of going to
Marly-le-Roi by train when she might so easily have gone in her new
motor."

"Peggy gave her man a week's holiday," said Vanderlyn shortly. "You
know, Tom, that he wanted to go to his own home, somewhere in Normandy."

"Yes, yes. Of course! But still she might have gone out in the big
car--I wasn't using it yesterday."

The detective came back at the end of what seemed to both Vanderlyn and
Pargeter a very long quarter of an hour.

"No incident of any sort took place last night at the Gare St. Lazare,"
he said briefly. "We shall now institute a thorough enquiry among our
agents; every police-station in Paris shall