ing down upon the cigarette
from which he had knocked the ash.

"I am afraid poor Arthur did not always choose his friends with the best
of judgment," said he. "I am not squeamish, and I would not have boys
kept in a glass case, but--yes, I'm afraid Arthur was not always too
careful." He replaced the cigarette neatly between his lips. "This man,
now--this man whom you saw to-night--what sort of looking man will he
have been?"

"Oh, a tall, lean man," said Ste. Marie. "A tall man with blue eyes and
a heavy, old-fashioned mustache. I just can't remember the name."

The smoke stood still for an instant over Captain Stewart's cigarette,
and it seemed to Ste. Marie that a little contortion of anger fled
across the man's face and was gone again. He stirred slightly in his
chair. After a moment he said:

"I fancy, from your description--I fancy I know who the man was. If it
is the man I am thinking of, the name is--Powers. He is, as you have
said, a rather shady character, and I more than once warned my nephew
against him. Such people are not good companions for a boy. Yes, I
warned him."

"Powers," said Ste. Marie, "doesn't sound right to me, you know. I can't
say the fellow's name myself, but I'm sure--that is, I think--it's not
Powers."

"Oh yes," said Captain Stewart, with an elderly man's half-querulous
certainty. "Yes, the name is Powers. I remember it well. And I
remember--Yes, it was odd, was it not, your meeting him like that, just
as you were talking of Arthur? You--oh, you didn't speak to him, you
say? No, no, to be sure! You didn't recognize him at once. Yes, it was
odd. Of course, the man could have had nothing to do with poor Arthur's
disappearance. His only interest in the boy at any time would have been
for what money Arthur might have, and he carried none, or almost none,
away with him when he vanished. Eh, poor lad! Where can he be to-night,
I wonder? It's a sad business, M. Ste. Marie--a sad business."

Captain Stewart fell into a sort of brooding silence, frowning down at
the table before him, and twisting with his thin ringers the little
liqueur glass and the coffee-cup which were there. Once or twice, Ste.
Marie thought, the frown deepened and twisted into a sort of scowl, and
the man's fingers twitched on the cloth of the table; but when at last
the group at the other end of the board rose and began to move towards
the door, Captain Stewart rose also and followed them. At the door he
seemed to t