serious
matter, and I want your advice."

Spencer touched the bell. Cigars and cigarettes, whisky and soda,
appeared as though by magic.

"Now help yourself and go ahead, old chap," his host declared. "I'm a
good listener."

He proved himself so, sitting with half-closed eyes and an air of close
attention until he had heard the whole story. He did not once interrupt,
but when Duncombe had finished he asked a question.

"What did you say was the name of this cafe where the boy had
disappeared?"

"Cafe Montmartre."

Spencer sat up in his chair. His expression had changed.

"The devil!" he murmured softly.

"You know the place?"

"Very well. It has an extraordinary reputation. I am sorry to say it,
Duncombe, but it is a very bad place for your friend to have disappeared
from."

"Why?"

"In the first place it is the resort of a good many of the most
dangerous people in Europe--people who play the game through to the end.
It is a perfect hot-bed of political intrigue, and it is under police
protection."

"Police protection! A place like that!" Duncombe exclaimed.

"Not as you and I understand it, perhaps," Spencer explained. "There is
no Scotland Yard extending a protecting arm over the place, and that
sort of thing. But the place is haunted by spies, and there are
intrigues carried on there in which the secret service police often take
a hand. In return it is generally very hard to get to the bottom of any
disappearance or even robbery there through the usual channels. To the
casual visitor, and of course it attracts thousands from its reputation,
it presents no more dangers perhaps than the ordinary night cafe of its
sort. But I could think of a dozen men in Paris to-day, who, if they
entered it, I honestly believe would never be seen again."

Spencer was exaggerating, Duncombe murmured to himself. He was a
newspaper correspondent, and he saw these things with the halo of
melodrama around them. And yet--four nights ago. His face was white and
haggard.

"The boy," he said, "could have been no more than an ordinary visitor.
He had no great sum of money with him, he had no secrets, he did not
even speak the language. Surely he would have been too small fry for the
intriguers of such a place!"

"One would think so," Spencer answered musingly. "You are sure that he
was only what you say?"

"He was barely twenty-one," Duncombe answered, "and he had never been
out of England before."

"What about the g