n soul?' as the psalmist says. I like
this ten-to-four business."

When we had gone into the inner office, and shut out Miss Grant and the
whooping-cough, he was serious instantly.

"Well," he said, sitting on the radiator and dangling his foot, "I guess
we've got Wardrop for theft, anyhow."

"Theft?" I inquired.

"Well, larceny, if you prefer legal terms. I found where he sold the
pearls--in Plattsburg, to a wholesale jeweler named, suggestively,
Cashdollar."

"Then," I said conclusively, "if he took the pearls and sold them, as
sure as I sit here, he took the money out of that Russia leather bag."

Burton swung his foot rhythmically against the pipes.

"I'm not so darned sure of it," he said calmly.

If he had any reason, he refused to give it. I told him, in my turn, of
Carter's escape, aided by the police, and he smiled. "For a suicide it's
causing a lot of excitement," he remarked. When I told him the little
incident of the post-office, he was much interested.

"The old lady's in it, somehow," he maintained. "She may have been
lending Fleming money, for one thing. How do you know it wasn't her
hundred thousand that was stolen?"

"I don't think she ever had the uncontrolled disposal of a dollar in her
life."

"There's only one thing to do," Burton said finally, "and that is, find
Miss Jane. If she's alive, she can tell something. I'll stake my
fountain pen on that--and it's my dearest possession on earth, next to
my mother. If Miss Jane is dead--well, somebody killed her, and it's
time it was being found out."

"It's easy enough to say find her."

"It's easy enough to find her," he exploded. "Make a noise about it;
send up rockets. Put a half-column ad in every paper in town, or--better
still--give the story to the reporters and let them find her for you.
I'd do it, if I wasn't tied up with this Fleming case. Describe her, how
she walked, what she liked to eat, what she wore--in this case what she
didn't wear. Lord, I wish I had that assignment! In forty-eight hours
she will have been seen in a hundred different places, and one of them
will be right. It will be a question of selection--that is, if she is
alive."

In spite of his airy tone, I knew he was serious, and I felt he was
right. The publicity part of it I left to him, and I sent a special
delivery that morning to Bellwood, asking Miss Letitia to say nothing
and to refer reporters to me. I had already been besieged with them,
since my conne