were to be credited.

"You--you do not think my father--stole the money?" she faltered
pitifully. "Say you do not think so."

"I think nothing yet," replied Kennedy in an even voice. "The first
thing to do is to find him--before the detectives of the junta do so."

I felt a tinge--I must confess it--of jealousy as Kennedy stood beside
her, clasping her hand in both of his and gazing earnestly down into the
rich flush that now spread over her olive cheeks.

"Miss Guerrero," he said, "you may trust me implicitly. If your father
is alive I will do all that a man can do to find him. Let me act--for
the best. And," he added, wheeling quickly toward me, "I know Mr.
Jameson will do likewise."

I was pulled two ways at once. I believed in Miss Guerrero, and yet the
flight of her father and the removal of the bullion swallowed up, as
it were, instantly, without so much as a trace in New York--looked very
black for him. And yet, as she placed her small hand tremblingly in mine
to say good-bye, she won another knight to go forth and fight her battle
for her, nor do I think that I am more than ordinarily susceptible,
either.

When she had gone, I looked hopelessly at Kennedy. How could we find a
missing man in a city of four million people, find him without the aid
of the police--perhaps before the police could themselves find him?

Kennedy seemed to appreciate my perplexity as though he read my
thoughts. "The first thing to do is to locate this Senor Torreon from
whom the first information came," he remarked as we left the apartment.
"Miss Guerrero told me that he might possibly be found in an obscure
boarding-house in the Bronx where several members of the junta live. Let
us try, anyway."

Fortune favoured us to the extent that we did find Torreon at the
address given. He made no effort to evade us, though I noted that he was
an unprepossessing looking man--undersized and a trifle over-stout, with
an eye that never met yours as you talked with him. Whether it was that
he was concealing something, or whether he was merely fearful that we
might after all be United States Secret Service men, or whether it was
simply a lack of command of English, he was uncommonly uncommunicative
at first. He repeated sullenly the details of the disappearance of
Guerrero, just as we had already heard them.

"And you simply bade him good-bye as you got on a subway train and that
is the last you ever saw of him?" repeated Kennedy.

"Yes,"