door. Further----"

"What was he doing there?"

"He came home last night with a gentleman you know," said Hobart
Hitchin. "One Anthony Fry!"

"The liniment Fry?" cried Theodore Dalton.

His gray face turned white and then purple. He rose and ran one hand
through his shaggy gray mop.

"The liniment Fry," Hitchin said.

"My boy--my Dicky went home with that man?"

"A boy was introduced to me as David Prentiss."

Dalton's hands clutched his forehead for a moment and the grinding of
his teeth was audible.

"You were saying--what were you saying about a trunk?"

"I said that the remains of the boy had been brought here by Fry's
personal servant, sir. I saw them taken into the side gate not ten
minutes ago and----"

"Come!" said Theodore Dalton.

He reached out and, gripping Hitchin's arm, decided that gentleman's
course for him. As Theodore Dalton strode to the back of the house and
to the back stairs, as he went straight down and into and through the
kitchen, Hobart Hitchin merely went along, partly in stumbles, partly in
little jumps; and so they came to the laundry and, nerving himself until
the veins stood out on his temples, Dalton faced his butler and spoke
thickly:

"The--the trunk!"

"Beg pardon, sir?" said Bates humbly.

"The trunk which was brought here! Where is it?"

"Oh, that trunk, sir. It was took away again, Mr. Dalton. The person
that brought it said it was for Felice, the maid we dismissed this
morning, sir."

"_For Felice?_" Dalton echoed.

"Quite so, sir."

"Why was it sent to Felice?"

"I couldn't say, sir," said Bates, stepping to the gate and opening it.
"There it goes, sir, on the cab. Shall I send after it?"

Dalton leaned heavily against Hobart Hitchin.

"Goes--where?"

"Well, I'm not sure as it was his voice, sir, but I think, standing out
here, I heard him tell the man to go back where they came from."

Followed quite a tableau.

Bates stared respectfully at his master. Hobart Hitchin, who had not as
yet had time to form a complete new set of theories, merely stood and
frowned. But although Theodore Dalton did not move, he did not seem
still.

His face, in fact, mirrored the whole gamut of human emotions of the
darker sort; overwhelming sorrow was there at first, and then,
succeeding slowly, amazement and unbelief, and after them trembling
anger. Black fire shot from his deepset eyes, as they switched to
Hitchin; his lips became a ghastly white line; his mighty