ten seconds when the policeman was called to the phone.
As for Petch, that valorous knight-errant crossed on the next boat, and
the Hoboken police were already on the _qui vive_.

Every road into and out of New York was soon watched by sharp eyes on
the lookout for a car bearing a license numbered in the tens of
thousands, and tenanted by a hatless man and a girl in indoor costume.
Quickly the circles lessened in concentric rings through the agencies of
telephone-boxes and roundsmen.

At half past nine a patrolman found a car answering the description
standing outside an up-town saloon on the East Side. Examining the
register number he saw at once that blacking had been smeared over the
first and last figures. Then he knew. But there was no trace of the
driver. Voles and Winifred had vanished into thin air.

Mrs. Carshaw, breakfasting with a haggard and weary son, revealed that
Senator Meiklejohn was at Atlantic City. He kissed her for the news.

"Meiklejohn must wait, mother," he said. "Winifred is somewhere in New
York. I cannot tear myself away to Atlantic City to-day. When I have
found her, I shall deal with Meiklejohn."

Then came Steingall, and he and Mrs. Carshaw exchanged a glance which
the younger man missed.

Mrs. Carshaw, sitting a while in deep thought after the others had gone,
rang up a railway company. Atlantic City is four hours distant from New
York. By hurrying over certain inquiries she wished to make, she might
catch a train at midday.

She drove to her lawyers. At her request a smart clerk was lent to her
for a couple of hours. They consulted various records. The clerk made
many notes on foolscap sheets in a large, round hand, and Mrs. Carshaw,
seated in the train, read them many times through her gold-mounted
lorgnette.

It was five o'clock when a taxi brought her to the Marlborough-Blenheim
Hotel, and Senator Meiklejohn was the most astonished man on the Jersey
coast at the moment when she entered unannounced, for Mrs. Carshaw had
simply said to the elevator-boy: "Take me to Senator Meiklejohn's
sitting-room."

Undeniably he was startled; but playing desperately for high stakes had
steadied him somewhat. Perhaps the example of his stronger brother had
some value, too, for he rose with sufficient affability.

"What a pleasant _rencontre_, Mrs. Carshaw," he said. "I had no notion
you were within a hundred miles of the Board Walk."

"That is not surprising," she answered, sinking into a