he
detective went on. "Anyhow, you know what her price was from her name,
which is hers right enough. Wenham, who was a year younger than his
brother, was the first to bid it. Three months ago, Mr. and Mrs. Wenham
Gardner, Miss Beatrice, and the devoted father left New York in the
Lusitania and came to London."

"Where is this Wenham Gardner, then?" Tavernake demanded.

Pritchard took his cigar case from his pocket and selected another
cigar.

"Say, that's where you strike the nail right on the head," he remarked.
"Where is this Wenham Gardner?"

"I don't mind telling you, Mr. Tavernake, that to discover his
whereabouts is exactly what I am over on this side for. I have a
commission from the family to find out, and a blank cheque to do it
with."

"Do you mean that he has disappeared, then?" asked Tavernake.

"Off the face of the earth, sir," Pritchard replied. "Something like two
months ago, the young married couple, with Miss Beatrice, started for
a holiday tour somewhere down in the west of England. A few days after
they started, Miss Beatrice comes back to London alone. She goes to
a boarding-house, is practically penniless, but she has shaken her
sister--has, I believe, never spoken with her since. A little later,
Elizabeth alone turns up in London. She has plenty of money, more
money than she has ever had the control of before in her life, but no
husband."

"So far, I don't see anything remarkable about that," Tavernake
interposed.

"That may or may not be," Pritchard answered, drily. "This creature,
Wenham Gardner--I hate to call him a man--was her abject slave--up till
the time they reached London, at any rate. He would never have quit of
his own accord. He stopped quite suddenly communicating with all his
friends. None of their cables, even, were answered."

"Why don't you go and ask Mrs. Gardner where he is?" Tavernake demanded
bluntly.

"I have already," Pritchard declared, "taken that liberty. With tears
in her eyes, she assured me that after some slight quarrel, in which
she admits that she was the one to blame, her husband walked out of the
house where they were staying, and she has not seen him since. She was
quite ready with all the particulars, and even implored me to help find
him."

"I cannot imagine," Tavernake said, "why any one should disbelieve her."

The detective smiled.

"There are a few little outside circumstances," he remarked, looking at
the ash of his cigar. "In the first