assistance to make up for doing my
disagreeable duty, sir?"

"I've had ten dollars' worth, thank you," said Peter. "And now for the
fourth time of opening that door."

He went out, satisfied that he was carrying with him the only trace of
Winifred Child from the shut-up house. To-morrow he would begin with
the opening of the shops and look through every department store until
he found her.

CHAPTER XXIII

MOTHER

Peter Rolls, as it oddly happened, had run up to New York that hot
night in order to see a girl do a "turn" at a vaudeville theatre--an
English girl about whom he had read a newspaper paragraph, and who
might, he thought, be Winifred Child. The girl's stage name was
Winifred Cheylesmore. The newspaper described her as "tall, dark, and
taking, with a voice like Devonshire cream."

She was a new girl, of whom nobody had heard, and Peter had been
thrilled and impatient. Her "singing stunt" was to be heard at ten
o'clock, and Peter had dined at his club, meaning to be early in his
seat at the theatre. But a man he knew, sitting at a table near, was a
budding journalist, an earnest amateur photographer. He began passing
samples of his skill to Peter Rolls, calling out rather loudly the
names of ladies snapshotted. Among them was Winifred Cheylesmore, whom
he had interviewed. She was no more like Winifred Child than Marie
Tempest is like Ethel Barrymore. Consequently Peter gave his ticket
away and sat longer over his dinner than he had meant.

If he had started out even five minutes earlier he would have missed
Jim Logan and the adventure in the shut-up house. He would not have
known that there was hope--indeed, almost a certainty--of finding the
lost dryad in one of New York's great department stores.

He was excited, and would have liked to spend half the night walking
off his superfluous energy in the streets or the park where that lying
beast said he had made Miss Child's acquaintance. Peter would have
felt that he was marching to meet the dawn and that the day he longed
for would come to him sooner if he walked toward the horizon. But
father was in town that night--presumedly at his club, and Peter did
not like to leave mother alone. She had exacted no promise--she never
did exact promises, for that was not her way. Peter had said, however,
that he would motor home after the theatre, and though mother mustn't
sit up, she would know that he was in the house.

He determined to keep to this pla