"Like the history of Ireland," said Ledwith dryly.

"Is the very one to keep us thinking and talking for a month," said
Grahame. "Captain, if you will oblige us, a story of failure and of
mystery."

"Such a one is fresh in my mind, for I fled from my ill-success to take
charge of this expedition," said the Captain, whose voice was singularly
pleasant. "The detective grows stale sometimes, as singers and musicians
do, makes a failure of his simplest work, and has to go off and sharpen
his wits at another trade. I am in that condition. For twenty months I
sought the track of a man, who disappeared as if the air absorbed him
where he last breathed. I did not find him. The search gave me a touch
of monomania. For two months I have not been able to rest upon meeting a
new face until satisfied its owner was not--let us say, Tom Jones."

"Are you satisfied, then," said Arthur, "that we are all right?"

"He was not an Irishman, but a Puritan," replied the Captain, "and would
not be found in a place like this. I admit I studied your faces an hour
or so, and asked about you among the men, but under protest. I have
given up the pursuit of Tom Jones, and I wish he would give up the
pursuit of me. I had to quiet my mind with some inquiries."

"Was there any money awaiting Tom? If so, I might be induced to be
discovered," Grahame said anxiously.

"You are all hopeless, Mr. Grahame. I have known you and Mr. Ledwith
long enough, and Mr. Dillon has his place secure in New York----"

"With a weak spot in my history," said Arthur. "I was off in California,
playing bad boy for ten years."

The Captain waved his hand as admitting Dillon's right to his
personality.

"In October nearly two years ago the case of Tom Jones was placed in my
care with orders to report at once to Mrs. Tom. The problem of finding a
lost man is in itself very simple, if he is simply lost or in hiding.
You follow his track from the place where he was last seen to his new
abode. But around this simple fact of disappearance are often grouped
the interests of many persons, which make a tangle worse than a poor
fisherman's line. A proper detective will make no start in his search
until the line is as straight and taut as if a black bass were sporting
at the other end of it."

All the men exchanged delighted glances at this simile.

"I could spin this story for three hours straight talking of the
characters who tangled me at the start. But I did not budge u