d their faces. His slow-moving mind was
apt to be dominated by a single idea. He understood enough of the Costa
Rican project to grasp the essential fact that there was money in it for
all concerned, and money honestly earned, if honesty be measured by the
ethics of the stock manipulator.

He realized, too, that neither Voles nor Rachel Craik could be moved by
argument, and he rightly estimated Fowle as a weak-minded nonentity. So
he slowly hammered out a conclusion, and, having appraised it in his
narrow circle of thought, determined to put it into effect.

An East Orange doctor, who had received his instructions from the
police, paid a second visit to Mick the Wolf shortly before the hour of
Mrs. Carshaw's arrival in Atlantic City.

"Well, how is the arm feeling now?" he said pleasantly, when he entered
the patient's bedroom.

The answer was an oath.

"That will never do," laughed the doctor. "Cheerfulness is the most
important factor in healing. Ill-temper causes jerky movements and
careless--"

"Oh, shucks," came the growl. "Say, listen, boss! I've been broke up
twice over a slip of a girl. I've had enough of it. The whole darn thing
is a mistake. I want to end it, an' I don't give a hoorah in Hades who
knows. Just tell her friends that if they look for her on board the
steamer _Wild Duck_, loadin' at Smith's Pier in the East River, they'll
either find her or strike her trail. That's all. Now fix these bandages,
for my arm's on fire."

The doctor wisely put no further questions. He dressed the wounded limb
and took his departure. A policeman in plain clothes, hiding in a
neighboring barn, saw him depart and hailed him: "Any news, Doc?"

"Yes," was the reply. "If my information is correct you'll not be kept
there much longer."

He motored quickly to the police-station. Within the hour Carshaw, with
frowning face and dreams of wreaking physical vengeance on the burly
frame of Voles, was speeding across New York with Steingall in his
recovered car. He simply hungered for a personal combat with the man who
had inflicted such sufferings on his beloved Winifred.

The story told by Polly Barnard, and supplemented by Petch, revealed
very clearly the dastardly trick practised by Voles the previous
evening, while the dodge of smearing out two of the figures on the
automobile's license plate explained the success attained in traversing
the streets unnoticed by the police.

Steingall was inclined to theorize.

"