nto
contact with these dreadful things. And--an inmate of her establishment!

"Oh, you must be mistaken!" she exclaimed in horror-stricken accents. "A
warrant?--that means you want to arrest somebody. An inmate--surely none
of my servants--"

"Nothing to do with servants," interrupted the chief. "I said an inmate.
Pray don't be alarmed. We want a young lady who is known to you as Miss
Mary Slade."

The manageress got up as quickly as she had sat down. For one moment she
gazed at her visitor as if he had demanded her very life--the next her
lip curled in scorn.

"Miss Slade!" she exclaimed. "Impossible, sir! Miss Slade is a young lady
of the very highest respectability--she has resided in this hotel for
three years!"

"I am quite prepared to believe that a residence of three months under
your roof is enough to confer an irreproachable character on any one,
ma'am," replied the chief with a polite smile. "But the fact remains, I
have here a warrant for Miss Slade's arrest--never mind on what
charge--and here another empowering me to search her room or rooms, her
trunk, any property she has in this house. And as time presses I must ask
you to give us every facility in the performance of our unpleasant duty.
But first a question or two. Miss Slade is not at home?"

"She is not!" replied the manageress emphatically.

"And I think she did not return home last night?" suggested the chief.

"No--she didn't," assented the much perplexed woman. "That's quite true."

"Was that unusual?" asked the chief.

The manageress bit her lip. She did not want to talk, but she had a vague
idea that the law compelled speech.

"Well, I don't know what it's all about," she said, "and I don't want to
say anything that would bring trouble to Miss Slade, but--it was unusual.
For two reasons. I've never known Miss Slade to be away from here for a
night except when she went for her usual month's holiday, and I'm
surprised that she should stop away without giving me word or sending a
telephone message."

"Then her absence was unusual," said the chief smiling. "Now, was there
anything else that was unusual, last night--in connection with it?"

The manageress started and looked at her visitor as if she half suspected
him of possessing the power of seeing through brick walls.

"Well," she said, a little reluctantly, "there was certainly another of
our guests away last night, too--one who scarcely ever is away, and
certainly never without