not linger long over their examination of the rooms. But after
replacing the broken doors as best they could and sealing them, they
went out by the main entrance to question the watchman, whom they found
dozing in his chair.

Had he seen anything of Mrs. Athelstone? Sure; he'd called a cab for her
about an hour ago and she'd driven off with her brother.

"Her brother!" echoed Simpkins.

"Yep," yawned the watchman; "you know him--parson--Doctor Brander.
What's up?"

"Nothing," Simpkins returned sourly, but to himself he added, "Oh,
hell!"

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

X

Once in the street again, after a word of explanation to the watchman,
the officers and Simpkins separated, they to report and send out an
alarm for Mrs. Athelstone and Brander, he to call up his office before
rejoining them. His exultation over his beat was keyed somewhat lower,
now that he understood what Brander's real interest in Mrs. Athelstone
was. Mentally, he wrung the neck of Buttons for not having known it;
figuratively, he kicked himself for not having guessed it; literally, he
damned his employers for their British reserve, their cool assumption
that because he was their clerk he was not interested in their family
affairs. "Cuss 'em for snobs," he wound up finally, a deep sense of his
personal grievance stirring his sociable Yankee soul.

Of course, this sickening brother and sister business wouldn't touch the
main fact of the story, but it knocked the "love motive" and the "heart
interest" higher than a kite, utterly ruining some of his prettiest bits
of writing, besides letting him in for a call-down from Naylor. Still,
the old man couldn't be very hard on him--he'd understand that some
trifling little inaccuracies were bound to creep into a great big story
like this, dug out and worked up by one man.

At this more cheerful conclusion, a newsboy, crying his bundle of still
damp papers, came along, and Simpkins hailed him eagerly. Standing under
a lamp on the corner, skipping from front page to back, then from head
to head inside, with an eye skilled to catch at a glance the stories
which a loathed contemporary had that the _Banner_ had missed, he
ran through the bunch. The _Sun_--not a line about Athelstone in
it. Bully! The _American_--he was a little afraid of the _American_.
Safe again. The _World_--Sam Blythe's humorous descriptive story of the
convention led. He stopped to pity Sam and the New York papers,