ilenced.

He determined to order Spaulding to have her shadowed constantly for at
least a fortnight and note made of every person in whose company she
appeared to be at all uneasy, whether they were of her own set or not. It
would also be worth while to have Madame Delano's rooms watched, for it
was possible that she would summon Helene there to meet Bisbee or others
of his ilk.

Then he picked up the other note. It was from Spaulding, and as he read
it all his finespun theories vanished and once more he was adrift on an
uncharted sea without a landmark in sight.

"Dear Sir," began the detective, who was always formal on paper. "I've
just got the information required from Holbrook Centre. We didn't half
believe there was such a place, if you remember? Well there is, and
according to the parish register Marie Jeanne Perrin was married to James
Delano on July 25th, 1891. She was there, visiting some French
relations--they went back soon after--and he had left there when he was
about sixteen and had only come back that once to see his mother, who was
dying. Nothing seems to have been known about him in his home town except
a sort of rumor that he was a bad lot and lived somewheres in California.
Can you beat it? But don't think I'm stumped. I'm working on a new line
and I'm not going to say another word until I've got somewheres.

"Yours truly,

"J. SPAULDING."

"Delano's father was a Forty-niner, and lived in California till 1860,
when he went home to H. C. and died soon after. There were wild stories
about him, too."

CHAPTER X

I

During the next few days Ruyler saw little of his wife. He was obliged to
take two business trips out of town and as he could not return until ten
o'clock at night he advised her to have company to dinner and take her
guests to the play. But she preferred to dine with Polly Roberts and
Aileen Lawton, and she spent her days for the most part at Burlingame,
motoring down with one or more of her friends, or sent for by some
enthusiastic girl admirer already established there for the summer.

Ruyler was quite willing to forego temporarily his plan of personal
guardianship, as the more she roamed abroad unattended the better could
Spaulding watch her associates. The detective had his agents in society,
as well as in the Palace Hotel, and on the third day he sent a brief note
to Ruyler announcing that he had "lit on to something" that would make
his employer's "hair curl, but no