, "I will certainly do everything I can. But I
must ask you to provide me first with a few more particulars about your
friend."

"I will tell you everything I know. But I really do not know very much."

"Her age?" said the Commissioner.

"I do not know her age, but I suppose she is about thirty."

"The place of her birth?"

Sylvia shook her head.

"What is her permanent address? Surely you know with whom you could
communicate the news of an accident having happened to her?"

"I am afraid I don't even know that." Sylvia began to feel rather
foolish. But--but was it so strange after all? Who among the people she
was now living with knew anything of her far-away English home? If
anything happened to herself, for instance? Even Count Paul would not
know to whom to write. It was an odd, rather an uncomfortable thought.

The Commissioner went to a drawer and pulled out from it a portfolio
filled with loose pieces of paper.

"Malfait? Malfait? Malfait?" he muttered interrogatively to himself. And
at last he found what he was looking for. It was a large sheet, on which
was inscribed in large round letters "Pension Malfait." There were many
close lines of writing under the words. He looked down and read through
all that was there.

"The Pension Malfait has a good reputation!" he exclaimed, in a relieved
tone. "I gather from what you say, Monsieur,"--he gave a quick shrewd
look at the Count--"that Madame and her friend did not play in a serious
sense at the Casino--I mean, there was no large sum of money in
question?"

Count Paul hesitated--but Sylvia thought that surely it were better to
tell the truth.

"Yes," she said, "my friend did play, and she played rather high. She
must have had a large sum of money in her possession when she left
Lacville, unless she lost it all on the last day. But I was in Paris,
and so I don't know what she did."

The Commissioner looked grave.

"Ah, but that alters the case very much!" he said. "I must request you to
come with me to the Pension Malfait. We had better pursue our inquiries
there. If this Madame Wolsky had a large sum of money in notes and gold,
it becomes very important that we should know where she is."

They all three left the shabby little house together, and Sylvia could
not help wondering what would happen there while they were gone. But the
Commissioner solved her doubts by turning the key in the door.

The Count hailed a cab, and they all got into it. Then f