"

Duncombe glanced up from his _hors d'oeuvre_.

"What do you mean?"

"I will explain," Spencer continued. "You came to me last night with a
story in which I hope that I showed a reasonable amount of interest, but
in which, as a matter of fact, I was not interested at all. Girls and
boys who come to Paris for the first time in their lives unattended, and
find their way to the Cafe Montmartre, and such places, generally end up
in the same place. It would have sounded brutal if I had added to your
distress last night by talking like this, so I determined to put you in
the way of finding out for yourself. I sent two of my most successful
news-scouts to that place last night, and I had not the slightest doubt
as to the nature of the information which they would bring back. It
turns out that I was mistaken."

"What did they discover?" Duncombe asked eagerly.

"Nothing!"

Duncombe's face fell, but he looked a little puzzled.

"Nothing? I don't understand. They must have heard that they had been
there anyhow."

"They discovered nothing. You do not understand the significance of
this. I do! It means that I was mistaken for one thing. Their
disappearance has more in it than the usual significance. Evil may have
come to them, but not the ordinary sort of evil. Listen! You say that
the police have disappointed you in having discovered nothing. That is
no longer extraordinary to me. The police, or those who stand behind
them, are interested in this case, and in the withholding of information
concerning it."

"You are talking riddles to me, Spencer," Duncombe declared. "Do you
mean that the police in Paris may become the hired tools of
malefactors?"

"Not altogether that," Spencer said, waving aside a dish presented
before him by the head waiter himself with a gesture of approval. "Not
necessarily malefactors. But there are other powers to be taken into
consideration, and most unaccountably your two friends are in deeper
water than your story led me to expect. Now, not another question,
please, until you have tried that sauce. Absolute silence, if you
please, for at least three or four minutes."

Duncombe obeyed with an ill grace. He had little curiosity as to its
flavor, and a very small appetite at all with the conversation in its
present position. He waited for the stipulated time, however, and then
leaned once more across the table.

"Spencer!"

"First I must have your judgment upon the sauce. Did you find eno