to have met you," said he slowly.

"You haven't. I know your name, but you don't know mine. I am
William B. Hill."

"Ah--Behill."

"No--_B._ Hill. The B is an initial."

"Of what?" said the other casually, and Billy's cheeks grew suddenly
warm.

"Of my middle name," said he, with steady composure. "If we are to
do any team-work you will have to let it go at the William and the
Hill."

"What team-work do you suggest?"

"Find out where she went yesterday. Find out where she is now. What
worries me," he burst out, with ungovernable uneasiness, yet with a
hint of humor at his own extravagant imaginings, "is her talking to
that Turk fellow yesterday--that Captain Kerissen, I think she
called him. She had told me the night before that he was going to
get her some ball tickets or other, and I didn't think anything of
it, but yesterday I thought he had his nerve to come and call upon
her. You see, I passed through the hall and saw them talking. I went
out to the veranda and after he had gone I came in again, but she
was nowhere in sight. Then I went back to the veranda, and in a few
moments she came out, in white with a rose on her hat, and went off
in a car that was ready. Of course Kerissen wasn't in the car, and I
haven't any proof of his connection with the thing, but he might
easily have induced her to look at some mosque or other off the
'beaten track'----"

"But she returned, for later she sent that telegram from the
station," Falconer argued.

Billy was silent. Then he burst out, "But all the same there is a
mystery to this thing.... She--she's too confoundedly young and
pretty to run around alone in this painted jade of a city."

"This city has law and order--much more of them than there are in
your national hotbeds of robbery and murder."

"H'm--well, I don't hold any brief for Chicago--I suppose Chicago is
the target--so I won't defend that. But I've heard stories."

"Queer ones, I should say."

"_Devilish_ queer ones!... How about that young Monkton or Monkhouse
who dropped out of things last winter?"

Falconer looked annoyed. "Oh, there are rumors----"

"Yes, rumors that he flirted with a Turkish lady--that he was on
horseback just outside her carriage during the jam at the
Kasr-el-Nil bridge, and they looked and smiled and afterwards met in
a shop. And rumors that she gave him a _rendezvous_ at her home and
that he told another man about it at the club, who warned him
sharply, and he only lau