ithout asking any conditions," he answered with
flattering cordiality. "It's not often I get a command so pleasant to
carry out!"

CHAPTER XI

A LETTER FROM RIVIERE

Olive made good her promise at once. She packed her father back to
England the very next day, to get to work on the Hudson Bay flotation,
and Lars Larssen remained on at Monte Carlo.

Though he had led Olive to believe that he had given in merely to please
her, yet his true motive was very different. His feelings towards her
held no scrap of passion in them. He knew her as vain, shallow,
feverishly pleasure-seeking--a glittering dragon-fly. As a woman she
made no appeal to him. But as a tool to serve in the attaining of his
ambitions, she might conceivably be highly useful.

His true motive in remaining at Monte Carlo was double-edged--to bring
Olive into the orbit of his fascination, and to mark time until the
mystery of John Riviere had been set at rest.

John Riviere worried him. Deep down in his being was a keen intuitive
feeling that this mysterious half-brother of the dead man was in some
way linked up with the attainment of his ambitions--to help or to
hinder.

Why had he not come to Monte Carlo as arranged? Why had he sent no line
to Olive to excuse himself? Why had he made no further inquiry about
Clifford Matheson--or had he indeed made some inquiry which might set
him on the track of his brother's disappearance?

It was vital to know how matters stood with this John Riviere before he
could march forward unhesitatingly with the Hudson Bay flotation.

The result of the advertisements in the Paris newspapers was annoying.
Where the shipowner had hoped for one answer--or perhaps a couple
pointing in the same direction--over a dozen had been received. This
meant waste of precious time while Sylvester unravelled them. Over the
'phone Larssen and his secretary had discussed the various answers;
rejected some of them; wired for confirmatory details in respect of
others. Provincial hotel-keepers and railway guards were so keenly "on
the make" that they were ready to swear to identity on the slenderest
basis of fact.

In pursuit of two of the clues, Sylvester travelled as far north as
Valognes in the Cotentin, and as far east as Gerardmer in the
Hautes-Vosges. Both journeys were fruitless, and worse than
fruitless--waste of precious time and energy.

While Larssen waited eagerly for definite news from his secretary with
whom he kept