Bond was completely prostrated by the death of her uncle, he
said, and was in an extremely nervous condition. Meanwhile if we found
any need of a machine we might use his uncle's, or in fact anything
around the place.

"Walter," said Craig, when Fletcher had gone, "I want to run back to
town to-night, and I have something I'd like to have you do, too."

We were soon speeding back along the splendid road to Long Island City,
while he laid out our programme.

"You go down to the Star office," he said, "and look through all the
clippings on the whole Fletcher family. Get a complete story of the life
of Helen Bond, too--what she has done in society, with whom she has been
seen mostly, whether she has made any trips abroad, and whether she
has ever been engaged--you know, anything likely to be significant. I'm
going up to the apartment to get my camera and then to the laboratory to
get some rather bulky paraphernalia I want to take out to Fletcherwood.
Meet me at the Columbus Circle station at, say half-past-ten."

So we separated. My search revealed the fact that Miss Bond had always
been intimate with the ultra-fashionable set, had spent last summer
in Europe, a good part of the time in Switzerland and Paris with the
Greenes. As far as I could find out she had never been reported engaged,
but plenty of fortunes as well as foreign titles had been flitting about
the ward of the steel-magnate.

Craig and I met at the appointed time. He had a lot of paraphernalia
with him, and it did not add to our comfort as we sped back, but it
wasn't much over half an hour before we again found ourselves nearing
Great Neck.

Instead of going directly back to Fletcherwood, however, Craig had told
the chauffeur to stop at the plant of the local electric light and power
company, where he asked if he might see the record of the amount of
current used the night before.

The curve sprawled across the ruled surface of the sheet by the
automatic registering-needle was irregular, showing the ups and downs of
the current, rising sharply from sundown and gradually declining after
nine o'clock, as the lights went out. Somewhere between eleven and
twelve o'clock, however, the irregular fall of the curve was broken by a
quite noticeable upward twist.

Craig asked the men if that usually happened. They were quite sure that
the curve as a rule went gradually down until twelve o'clock, when the
power was shut off. But they did not see anything rema