To
meet and make this chauffeur mine took me just two days. I don't know how
I did it. I never know how I do it," he added with a sheepish smile as
Mr. Gryce gave utterance to his old-fashioned "Umph!" "I don't flatter
and I don't bring out my pocketbook or offer drinks or even cigars, but
I get 'em, as you know, and get 'em strong, perhaps because I don't make
any great effort.

"After an evening spent in the garage with this man, he was ready to
talk, and this is what slipped out, among a lot of nonsensical gossip.
Mr. X, the real Mr. X this time, has, besides his apartment in New
York, a place on Long Island. The latter has been recently bought and,
though fine enough, is being added to and refitted as no man at his age
would take the trouble of doing, if he hadn't a woman in mind. The
chauffeur--Holmes is his name--is no fool, and has seen for some time
that Mr. X, for all his goings to and fro and the many calls he is in the
habit of making on a certain young lady, did not expect him--that is,
Holmes--to notice anything beyond the limits of his work, or to recognize
in any way his employer's secret intentions. But fortunately for us, this
man Holmes is just one of those singularly meddlesome people whose
curiosity grows with every attempt at repression; and when, coincident
with that disastrous happening at the museum, all these loverlike
attentions ceased and no calls were made and no presents sent, and gloom
instead of cheer marked his employer's manner, he made up his mind to
sacrifice a portion of his dignity rather than endure the fret of a
mystery he did not understand. This meant not only keeping his eyes
open,--this he had always done,--but his ears as well.

"The young lady, whose name he never mentioned, lives not in the city but
in that same Long Island village where Mr. X's country-house is in the
process of renovation. If he, Holmes, should ever be so fortunate as to
be ordered to drive there again, he knew of a gravel walk running under
the balcony where the two often sat. He would make the acquaintance of
that gravel walk instead of sitting out the hour somewhere in the rear,
as he had hitherto been accustomed to do. What's the use of having ears
if you don't use them? Nobody would be any the worse, and his mind would
be at rest.

"And do you know, sir, that he did actually carry this cowardly
resolution through. There came a night--I think it was Tuesday--when the
order came, and they took the r