e settled yesterday, didn't we, that you and I
are to consider ourselves partners, as it were, in this job? That's all
right," he continued, as Rathbury nodded very quietly. "Very well--have
you made any further progress?"

Rathbury put his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat and, leaning
back in his chair, shook his head.

"Frankly, I haven't," he replied. "Of course, there's a lot being done
in the usual official-routine way. We've men out making various
enquiries. We're enquiring about Marbury's voyage to England. All that
we know up to now is that he was certainly a passenger on a liner which
landed at Southampton in accordance with what he told those people at
the Anglo-Orient, that he left the ship in the usual way and was
understood to take the train to town--as he did. That's all. There's
nothing in that. We've cabled to Melbourne for any news of him from
there. But I expect little from that."

"All right," said Spargo. "And--what are you doing--you, yourself?
Because, if we're to share facts, I must know what my partner's after.
Just now, you seemed to be--drawing."

Rathbury laughed.

"Well, to tell you the truth," he said, "when I want to work things
out, I come into this room--it's quiet, as you see--and I scribble
anything on paper while I think. I was figuring on my next step, and--"

"Do you see it?" asked Spargo, quickly.

"Well--I want to find the man who went with Marbury to that hotel,"
replied Rathbury. "It seems to me--"

Spargo wagged his finger at his fellow-contriver.

"I've found him," he said. "That's what I wrote that article for--to
find him. I knew it would find him. I've never had any training in your
sort of work, but I knew that article would get him. And it has got
him."

Rathbury accorded the journalist a look of admiration.

"Good!" he said. "And--who is he?"

"I'll tell you the story," answered Spargo, "and in a summary. This
morning a man named Webster, a farmer, a visitor to London, came to me
at the office, and said that being at the House of Commons last night
he witnessed a meeting between Marbury and a man who was evidently a
Member of Parliament, and saw them go away together. I showed him an
album of photographs of the present members, and he immediately
recognized the portrait of one of them as the man in question. I
thereupon took the portrait to the Anglo-Orient Hotel--Mrs. Walters
also at once recognized it as that of the man who came to the hotel
with