d act in the same manner in your
place. But you will find that I am your friend. You can count on me to
aid you on demand. I won't trouble you again till you send for me. A
note to head-quarters will reach me quickest. Good-morning."

"Good-morning, Mr. Sefton, and thank you." Mr. Barnes extended his hand,
feeling that perhaps he had been unnecessarily discourteous.

Mr. Sefton took it with that genial smile of friendship so common to the
native Southerner.

Left alone, Mr. Barnes at once prepared for a trip to Algiers,
determined not to let any more time be lost. He reached the shops just
after the men had knocked off for luncheon. The foreman, however, told
him that Leroy Mitchel had been at work in the morning, so he waited
patiently.

When the men came back to resume work, the foreman pointed out a man who
he said was Leroy Mitchel. The fellow had a bad face, and if ever he was
a gentleman he had sunk so low through drink that no evidence of it
remained in his appearance. Mr. Barnes went up to him and asked when he
could have a talk with him.

"Now, if you pay for it," replied the man insolently.

"What do you mean?" asked the detective.

"Just what I say," said the other. "We get our pay here by the hour, and
if you want my time why you'll have to pay for it at union rates," and
he laughed as though a good joke had been propounded.

"Then," said Mr. Barnes, taking in the kind of a man with whom he had
to deal, "I'll engage you on a job that I have for you, and pay you
double wages as long as I use you."

"Now you are talking," said the fellow. "Where'll we go?"

"I think I'll take you to my hotel." And thither they proceeded. Up in
his own room again, Mr. Barnes felt at ease, whilst his companion
certainly made himself comfortable, selecting a rocking-chair, and
putting his feet up on the window-sill.

"Now then," began Mr. Barnes, "I want to ask you a few questions. Are
you prepared to answer them?"

"That will depend on what they are. If you don't ask impertinent
questions, or ones that I think I ought to get more than double wages
for answering, why, I am with you."

"In the first place, then, are you willing to say whether you ever knew
a woman who called herself Rose Mitchel?"

"Well, rather. I lived with her till she broke me."

"Do you know where she is now?"

"I don't, and I don't care to."

"Suppose I were to tell you that she is dead, and that she had left a
hundred thousand dollars