The house, you remember, is closed. Mr. Fairbrother, on leaving
town, gave his servants a vacation. His steward he took with him,--that
is, they started together. But we hear no mention made of him in
our telegrams from Santa Fe. He does not seem to have followed Mr.
Fairbrother into the mountains."

"You say that in a peculiar way," I remarked.

"Because it has struck us peculiarly. Where is Sears now? And why did
he not go on with Mr. Fairbrother when he left home with every apparent
intention of accompanying him to the Placide mine? Miss Van Arsdale, we
were impressed with this fact when we heard of Mr. Fairbrother's lonely
trip from where he was taken ill to his mine outside of Santa Fe; but we
have only given it its due importance since hearing what has come to us
to-day.

"Miss Van Arsdale," continued the inspector, as I looked up quickly, "I
am going to show great confidence in you. I am going to tell you what
our men have learned about this Sears. As I have said before, it is but
forestalling the reporters by a day, and it may help you to understand
why I sent you such peremptory orders to stop, when your whole heart was
fixed on an attempt by which you hoped to right Mr. Durand. We can not
afford to disturb so distinguished a person as the one you have under
your eye, while the least hope remains of fixing this crime elsewhere.
And we have such hope. This man, this Sears, is by no means the simple
character one would expect from his position. Considering the short time
we have had (it was only yesterday that Jones found his way into this
office), we have unearthed some very interesting facts in his regard.
His devotion to Mr. Fairbrother was never any secret, and we knew as
much about that the day after the murder as we do now. But the
feelings with which he regarded Mrs. Fairbrother--well, that is another
thing--and it was not till last night we heard that the attachment which
bound him to her was of the sort which takes no account of youth or age,
fitness or unfitness. He was no Adonis, and old enough, we are told, to
be her father; but for all that we have already found several persons
who can tell strange stories of the persistence with which his eager
old eyes would follow her whenever chance threw them together during the
time she remained under her husband's roof; and others who relate, with
even more avidity, how, after her removal to apartments of her own, he
used to spend hours in the adjoining par