en stolen before now."

"Nonsense," said Gladwin. "I have a burglar alarm set here, and I'll
wager there aren't half a dozen persons who know the Gladwin
collection is hung in this house."

"Just the same--but I say, Travers, there's the door bell. Were you
expecting anybody else."

Gladwin glanced about him nervously.

"No," he said sharply. "On the contrary, I didn't wish--what the deuce
does it mean?"

"It means some one is at the door."

CHAPTER XII.

APPROACHING A WORLD OF MYSTERY.

Gaston Brielle, the strawberry blonde French chauffeur who piloted the
big, luxurious motor car Jabez Hogg of Omaha had placed at the service
of Mrs. Elvira Burton and her two charming young nieces, did not have
his mind entirely concentrated upon manipulating the wheel and
throttle of the car as he swung around Grant's Tomb and sped southward
down the Drive. While his knowledge of English was confined to a few
expletives of a profane nature and the mystic jargon of the garage, he
was nevertheless thrilled by the belief that the two mademoiselles
behind him were plotting some mysterious enterprise.

From time to time they had unconsciously dropped their voices to the
low tones commonly used by conspirators, or at least that was the way
Gaston had sensed it. Along the silent roads of Central Park and
Riverside Drive, where even the taxis seemed to employ their mufflers
and to resort less frequently to the warning racket of their exhausts,
the Frenchman had been straining his ears to listen.

He had heard on two occasions what he divined as a manifest sob, first
when the emotional Sadie gave way to tears and again when Helen was
aggravated to a petulant outburst of grief.

Later when he heard bright laughter and gay exclamations he could
hardly believe his ears. He was profoundly troubled and completely
bewildered--a dangerous state of mind for a man who has the power of
seventy horses under the pressure of his thumb.

Nor was his mental turmoil in the least alleviated when, having turned
south and being on the point of coasting down a precipitous hill he
felt a touch on his shoulder and heard the elder of his two pretty
passengers command him in worse French than his own poor English to go
slow when he turned into Fifth avenue again and be prepared to stop.

Gaston knew that this was in direct violation of his orders from Mrs.
Burton, but when he saw a yellow-backed bill flutter down over his
shoulder his quick i