home that night and I went to the office the
next morning. The stenographer said he had not been there. He is not at
Plattsburg, because they have been trying to call him from there on the
long distance telephone every day."

In spite of her candid face I was sure she was holding something back.

"Why don't you tell me everything?" I asked. "You may be keeping back
the one essential point."

She flushed. Then she opened her pocket-book and gave me a slip of rough
paper. On it, in careless figures, was the number "eleven twenty-two."
That was all.

"I was afraid you would think it silly," she said. "It was such a
meaningless thing. You see, the second night after father left, I was
nervous and could not sleep. I expected him home at any time and I kept
listening for his step down-stairs. About three o'clock I was sure I
heard some one in the room below mine--there was a creaking as if the
person were walking carefully. I felt relieved, for I thought he had
come back. But I did not hear the door into his bedroom close, and I got
more and more wakeful. Finally I got up and slipped along the hall to
his room. The door was open a few inches and I reached in and switched
on the electric lights. I had a queer feeling before I turned on the
light that there was some one standing close to me, but the room was
empty, and the hall, too."

"And the paper?"

"When I saw the room was empty I went in. The paper had been pinned to a
pillow on the bed. At first I thought it had been dropped or had blown
there. When I saw the pin I was startled. I went back to my room and
rang for Annie, the second housemaid, who is also a sort of personal
maid of mine. It was half-past three o'clock when Annie came down. I
took her into father's room and showed her the paper. She was sure it
was not there when she folded back the bed clothes for the night at
nine o'clock."

"Eleven twenty-two," I repeated. "Twice eleven is twenty-two. But that
isn't very enlightening."

"No," she admitted. "I thought it might be a telephone number, and I
called up all the eleven twenty-twos in the city."

In spite of myself, I laughed, and after a moment she smiled in
sympathy.

"We are not brilliant, certainly," I said at last. "In the first place,
Miss Fleming, if I thought the thing was very serious I would not
laugh--but no doubt a day or two will see everything straight. But, to
go back to this eleven twenty-two--did you rouse the servants and have
th