it, chiefly because he had talked about it at the
time with Jasper Grierson, and had wondered curiously how the president
of the Farmers' and Merchants' would deport himself under like
conditions.

"Do you remember the date?" she asked.

Since it was tied to his first business interview with Grierson _pere_,
Raymer was able to recall the date, approximately, and together they
turned the file of the _Pioneer Press_ until they came to the number
containing the Associated Press story of the crime. It was fairly
circumstantial; the young woman at the teller's window figured in it,
and there was a sketchy description of the robber.

"If you should meet the man face to face, would you recognise him from
the description?" she flashed up at Raymer.

"Not in a thousand years," he confessed. "Would you?"

"No; not from the description," she admitted. Then she passed to a
matter apparently quite irrelevant.

"Didn't I see Miss Farnham's return noticed in the _Wahaskan_ the other
day?"

With Charlotte's father a daily visitor at Mereside, it seemed
incredible that Miss Grierson had not heard of the daughter's
home-coming. But Raymer answered in good faith.

"You may have seen it some time ago. She and Miss Gilman have been home
for three or four weeks."

"Somebody said they were coming up the river by boat; did they?"

"Yes, all the way from New Orleans."

"That must have been delightful, if they were fortunate enough to get a
good boat. I've been told that the table is simply impossible on some of
them."

"So it is. But they came up as far as St. Louis on one of the Anchor
Lines--the _Belle Julie_--and even Miss Gilman admits that the
accommodations were excellent."

She nodded absently and began to turn the leaves of the newspaper file.
Raymer took it as his dismissal and went to the desk to get the orchid
book. When he looked in again on his way to the street, Miss Grierson
had gone, leaving the file of the _Pioneer Press_ open on the reading
desk. Almost involuntarily he glanced at the first-page headings,
thrilling to a little shock of surprise when one of them proved to be
the caption of another Associated Press despatch giving a twenty-line
story of the capture and second escape of the Bayou State Security
robber on the levee at St. Louis.

The reading of the bit of stale news impressed him curiously. Why had
Miss Margery interested herself in the details of the New Orleans bank
robbery? Why--with no appar