lle," was his word for her. The man was
Captain Kerissen. He was known to all the city--well known, he
was--in a certain way. It was not a good way for the ladies. Yes, he
had a motor car--a grand, gray car. (Billy remembered that the fatal
limousine had been gray.) It was well known that he had bought it
for a foreign woman whom he had brought from over-seas and installed
in the palace of his fathers. Yes, he knew well where that palace
was. His brother's wife's uncle was a eunuch there, but he was a
hard man who held his own counsel and that of his master.

Could a girl be shut up in that palace and the world be no wiser?
The one-eyed man stared scathingly at such ignorance. Why not? The
underworld might know, but native gossip never reached white ears.

What was the best way of finding out, then? The one-eyed man had no
hesitation about his answer.

A native must use his eyes and ears for the American. Through his
subtle skill and the American's money the discovery could be made.
The women servants would talk.

That was the way, Billy agreed, and quoted to the Arab his own
proverb, "A saint will weary of well-doing and a braggart of his
boasts, but a woman's tongue will never stop of itself," and the
one-eyed man had nodded, with an air of resigned understanding, and
quoted in answer, "There is nothing so great and nothing so small,
nothing so precious and nothing so foul, but that a woman will put
her tongue to it," and an understanding appeared to have been
reached.

The one-eyed man was to loiter about the palace, calling upon the
brother's wife's uncle if possible, and discover all that he could
without arousing suspicion. And Billy determined to do a little
loitering himself and quicken the one-eyed man's investigations and
keep watch of Kerissen's comings and goings, and a donkey boy was
hired by the one-eyed man to follow the Captain when he appeared in
the street and report the places to which he went.

It was all very ridiculous, of course, Billy cheerfully agreed with
himself, but by proving its own folly it would serve to allay that
extraordinarily nagging uneasiness of his. If he could just be
_sure_ that little Miss Beecher wasn't tucked out of sight somewhere
in the power of that barbaric scamp with his Continental veneer!

Meanwhile the Oriental methods to be employed in the finding out
appealed to the young American's humor and his rash love of
adventure. He was grinning as he sat there on th