pped abruptly, feeling it
wisest not to speak, but to listen.

"That, I repeat, is why I have come here," said Vanderlyn's formidable
visitor. He spoke with a great deliberateness and mildness of manner. "I
cannot help thinking, my dear sir, that with your help we may be, or
rather _I_ may be, on the eve of a discovery."

Vanderlyn looked surprised; his desolate eyes met the older man's
hesitating glance quite squarely, but this time he remained silent.

The Prefect went on speaking, and his voice became more and more suave;
he was certainly desirous of saving in every way his host's
susceptibilities.

"The fact that I have taken the very unusual course of coming myself to
see you, Mr. Vanderlyn, will prove to you the importance I attach to
this interview. Indeed, I wish to be quite frank with you----"

Vanderlyn bent his head, and then he sat up, listening keenly while the
other continued----

"This is not, I am convinced, an ordinary case of disappearance, and it
is to us, and especially to me, disagreeably complicated by the fact
that the lady is an English subject and that her husband is a well-known
and highly thought of member of our English colony. This makes me the
more anxious to avoid"--he hesitated, then firmly uttered the two words,
"any scandal. It was suggested at the Prefecture to-day that it would be
well to make a perquisition, not only in Mrs. Pargeter's own house, but
also in the houses of some of her intimates. Mr. Pargeter, as you know,
gave the police every possible facility. Nothing was found in the Villa
Pargeter which could throw any light on Mrs. Pargeter's disappearance.
Now, Monsieur, before subjecting _you_ to such an unpleasant occurrence,
I decided to approach you myself----"

Vanderlyn opened his lips, and then closed them again.

"I have come to ask you, Monsieur, one question, and I give you my word
as an honest man that what you tell me shall be treated as confidential.
I ask you if you know more of this mysterious matter than you are
apparently prepared to divulge? In a word--I beg you to tell me where
Mrs. Pargeter is hiding at the present moment? I have no wish to disturb
her retreat, but I beg you most earnestly to entrust me with the
secret."

Again the speaker's eyes took a discreet journey round the plain, now
shadow-filled room; his glance rested on the book-shelves which formed
so important a part of its decorations, lingered doubtingly on a carved
walnut chest set