“You have no secret societies over here, I suppose?” he said.     

       Mr. Skinner laughed loudly and derisively.     

       “I guess not,” he answered. “They keep that sort of rubbish on the other side of the pond.”      

       “Ah!”      

       Mr. Sabin was thoughtful for a moment. “You expect to find, then,” he remarked, “some other cause for my wife’s disappearance?”      

       “There don’t seem much room for doubt concerning that, sir,” Mr. Skinner said; “but I never speculate. I will bring you the facts to-night between eight and eleven. Now as to the business side of it.”      

       Mr. Sabin was for a moment puzzled.     

       “What’s the job worth to you?” Mr. Skinner asked. “I am willing to pay,”        Mr. Sabin answered, “according to your demands.”      

       “It’s a simple case,” Mr. Skinner admitted, “but our man at the Waldorf is expensive. If you get all your facts, I guess five hundred dollars will about see you through.”      

       “I will pay that,” Mr. Sabin answered.     

       “I will bring you the letters back to-night,” Mr. Skinner said. “I guess I’ll borrow that locket of yours, too.”      

       Mr. Sabin shook his head.     

       “That,” he said firmly, “I do not part with.” Mr. Skinner scratched his ear with his penholder. “It’s the only scrap of identifying matter we’ve got,” he remarked. “Of course it’s a dead simple case, and we can probably manage without it. But I guess it’s as well to fix the thing right down.”      

       “If you will give me a piece of paper,” Mr. Sabin said, “I will make you a sketch of the Duchess. The larger the better. I can give you an idea of the sort of clothes she would probably be wearing.”      

       Mr. Skinner furnished him with a double sheet of paper, and Mr. Sabin, with set face and unflinching figures, reproduced in a few simple strokes a wonderful likeness of the woman he loved. He pushed it away from him when he had finished without remark. Mr. 

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