you can do her a great service, a very great service."

"I will do it."

"To-night," said Craig. "I want you to sleep in Mrs. Close's room. You
can do so, for I know that Mr. Close is living at the St. Francis Club
until his wife returns from the sanitarium. To-morrow morning come to
my laboratory"--Craig handed her his card--"and I will tell you what
to do next. By the way, don't say anything to anyone in the house
about it, and keep a sharp watch on the actions of any of the servants
who may go into Mrs. Close's room."

"Well," said Craig, "there is nothing more to be done immediately." We
had once more regained the street and were walking up-town. We walked
in silence for several blocks.

"Yes," mused Craig, "there is something you can do, after all, Walter.
I would like you to look up Gregory and Close and Lawrence. I already
know something about them. But you can find out a good deal with your
newspaper connections. I would like to have every bit of scandal that
has ever been connected with them, or with Mrs. Close, or," he added
significantly, "with any other woman. It isn't necessary to say that
not a breath of it must be published--yet."

I found a good deal of gossip, but very little of it, indeed, seemed
to me at the time to be of importance. Dropping in at the St. Francis
Club, where I had some friends, I casually mentioned the troubles
of the Huntington Closes. I was surprised to learn that Close spent
little of his time at the Club, none at home, and only dropped into
the hospital to make formal inquiries as to his wife's condition. It
then occurred to me to drop into the office of _Society Squibs_, whose
editor I had long known. The editor told me, with that nameless look
of the cynical scandalmonger, that if I wanted to learn anything about
Huntington Close I had best watch Mrs. Frances Tulkington, a very
wealthy Western divorcee about whom the smart set were much excited,
particularly those whose wealth made it difficult to stand the pace of
society as it was going at present.

"And before the tragedy," said the editor with another nameless look,
as if he were imparting a most valuable piece of gossip, "it was the
talk of the town, the attention that Close's lawyer was paying to Mrs.
Close. But to her credit let me say that she never gave us a chance to
hint at anything, and--well, you know us; we don't need much to make
snappy society news."

The editor then waxed even more confidential, for if