loitering on the pavement, and went on. It sounded involved for a novice, but if I could find Anderson's drug-store I could find Mamie Brennan; through Mamie Brennan I would get Delia; and through Delia I might find Carter. I was vague from that point, but what Miss Fleming had said of Carter had made me suspicious of him. Under an arc light I made the first note in my new business of man-hunter and it was something like this:

Anderson's drug-store.

Ask for Mamie Brennan.

Find Delia.

Advise Delia that a policeman with a family is a bad bet.

Locate Carter.

It was late when I reached the corner of Chestnut and Union Streets, where Fred had said Allan Fleming had come to grief in a cab. But the corner-man had gone, and the night man on the beat knew nothing, of course, of any particular collision.

"There's plinty of 'em every day at this corner," he said cheerfully. "The department sinds a wagon here every night to gather up the pieces, autymobiles mainly. That trolley pole over there has been sliced off clean three times in the last month. They say a fellow ain't a graduate of the autymobile school till he can go around it on the sidewalk without hittin' it!"

I left him looking reminiscently at the pole, and went home to bed. I had made no headway, I had lost conceit with myself and a day and evening at the office, and I had gained the certainty that Margery Fleming was safe in Bellwood and the uncertain address of a servant who might know something about Mr. Fleming.

I was still awake at one o'clock and I got up impatiently and consulted the telephone directory. There were twelve Andersons in the city who conducted drug-stores.

When I finally went to sleep, I dreamed that I was driving Margery Fleming along a street in a broken taxicab, and that all the buildings were pharmacies and numbered eleven twenty-two.

CHAPTER III

NINETY-EIGHT PEARLS

After such a night I slept late. Edith still kept her honeymoon promise of no breakfast hour and she had gone out with Fred when I came down-stairs.

I have a great admiration for Edith, for her tolerance with my uncertain hours, for her cheery breakfast-room, and the smiling good nature of 

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