cause for fear. "Come with me then," he said, at length. "We will try
our luck together."

"No. I have resolved. I stay here."

"And leave your innocence unproved."

"How can I prove it?" cried Rufus Dawes, roughly impatient. "There are
crimes committed which are never brought to light, and this is one of
them."

"Well," said Rex, rising, as if weary of the discussion, "have it your
own way, then. You know best. The private detective game is hard work.
I, myself, have gone on a wild-goose chase before now. There's a mystery
about a certain ship-builder's son which took me four months to unravel,
and then I lost the thread."

"A ship-builder's son! Who was he?"

John Rex paused in wonderment at the eager interest with which the
question was put, and then hastened to take advantage of this new
opening for conversation. "A queer story. A well-known character in my
time--Sir Richard Devine. A miserly old curmudgeon, with a scapegrace
son."

Rufus Dawes bit his lips to avoid showing his emotion. This was the
second time that the name of his dead father had been spoken in his
hearing. "I think I remember something of him," he said, with a voice
that sounded strangely calm in his own ears.

"A curious story," said Rex, plunging into past memories. "Amongst other
matters, I dabbled a little in the Private Inquiry line of business, and
the old man came to me. He had a son who had gone abroad--a wild young
dog, by all accounts--and he wanted particulars of him."

"Did you get them?"

"To a certain extent. I hunted him through Paris into Brussels, from
Brussels to Antwerp, from Antwerp back to Paris. I lost him there.
A miserable end to a long and expensive search. I got nothing but
a portmanteau with a lot of letters from his mother. I sent the
particulars to the ship-builder, and by all accounts the news killed
him, for he died not long after."

"And the son?"

"Came to the queerest end of all. The old man had left him his
fortune--a large one, I believe--but he'd left Europe, it seems, for
India, and was lost in the Hydaspes. Frere was his cousin."

"Ah!"

"By Gad, it annoys me when I think of it," continued Rex, feeling,
by force of memory, once more the adventurer of fashion. "With the
resources I had, too. Oh, a miserable failure! The days and nights I've
spent walking about looking for Richard Devine, and never catching
a glimpse of him. The old man gave me his son's portrait, with full
particulars of hi