are her clothes in the wardrobe, and the
dressing-table is tidy. She's extraordinarily neat in her ways, is Miss
Bartlett--quite different from the empty-headed creatures girls mostly
are nowadays."

Miss Goodman spoke bitterly. She was fifty, gray-haired, and a hopeless
old maid. This point of view sours the appearance of saucy eighteen with
the sun shining in its tresses.

Carshaw swallowed something in his throat. The sanctity of this inner
room of Winifred's overwhelmed him. He turned away hastily.

"All right, Miss Goodman," he said; "we can learn nothing here. Let us
go back to your apartment, and I'll tell you what I want you to do
now."

Passing the writing-desk again he looked more carefully at its contents.
A small packet of bills caught his eye. There were the receipts for such
simple articles as Winifred had bought with his money. Somehow, the mere
act of examining such a list struck him with a sense of profanation. He
could not do it.

His eyes glazed. Hardly knowing what the words meant, he glanced through
the typed document from the bookbinder. It was obviously a business
letter. He committed no breach of the etiquette governing private
correspondence by reading it. So great was his delicacy in this respect
that he did not even lift the letter from the table, but noted the
address and the curt phraseology. Here, then, was a little explanation.
He would inquire at that place.

"I want you to telegraph me each morning and evening," he said to the
landlady. "Don't depend on the phone. If you have news, of course you
will give it, but if nothing happens say that there is no news. Here is
my address and a five-dollar bill for expenses. Did Miss Bartlett owe
you anything?"

"No, sir. She paid me yesterday when she gave me notice."

"Ah! Kindly retain her rooms. I don't wish any other person to occupy
them."

"Do you think, sir, she will not come back to-day?"

"I fear so. She is detained by force. She has been misled by some one. I
am going now to find out who that some one else is."

He drove his car, now rejuvenated, with the preoccupied gaze of one who
seeks to pierce a dark and troubled future. From the garage he called up
the Long Island estate where his hacks and polo ponies were housed for
the winter. He gave some instructions which caused the man in charge to
blink with astonishment.

"Selling everything, Mr. Carshaw!" he said. "D'ye really mean it?"

"Does my voice sound as if I were j