ng in delirium."

But McNorton smiled indulgently.

"I hope you're right," he said. "I hope the whole thing is a mare's nest
and for once in my life I trust that the police clues are as wrong as
hell. But, anyway, van Heerden is cabling mighty freely--and I want
Beale!"

But Beale was unreachable. A visit to his apartment produced no results.
The "foreign gentleman" who on the previous day had called on van
Heerden had been seen there that morning, but he, too, had vanished, and
none of McNorton's watchers had been able to pick him up.

McNorton shifted the direction of his search and dropped into the
palatial establishment of Punsonby's. He strolled past the grill-hidden
desk which had once held Oliva Cresswell, and saw out of the tail of his
eye a stranger in her place and by her side the darkly taciturn Hilda
Glaum.

Mr. White, that pompous man, greeted him strangely. As the police chief
came into the private office Mr. White half-rose, turned deadly pale and
became of a sudden bereft of speech. McNorton recognized the symptoms
from long acquaintance with the characteristics of detected criminals,
and wondered how deeply this pompous man was committed to whatever
scheme was hatching.

"Ah--ah--Mr. McNorton!" stammered White, shaking like a leaf, "won't you
sit down, please? To what--to what," he swallowed twice before he could
get the words out, "to what am I indebted?"

"Just called in to look you up," said McNorton genially. "Have you been
losing any more--registered letters lately?"

Mr. White subsided again into his chair.

"Yes, yes--no, I mean," he said, "no--ah--thank you. It was kind of you
to call, inspector----"

"Superintendent," corrected the other good-humouredly.

"A thousand pardons, superintendent," said Mr. White hastily, "no, sir,
nothing so unfortunate."

He shot a look half-fearful, half-resentful at the police officer.

"And how is your friend Doctor van Heerden?"

Mr. White twisted uncomfortably in his chair. Again his look of
nervousness and apprehension.

"Mr.--ah--van Heerden is not a friend of mine," he said, "a business
acquaintance," he sighed heavily, "just a business acquaintance."

The White he had known was not the White of to-day. The man looked
older, his face was more heavily lined and his eyes were dark with
weariness.

"I suppose he's a pretty shrewd fellow," he remarked carelessly. "You
are interested in some of his concerns, aren't you?"

"Only one, only