most exciting importance. That's a way clews have."

He took an envelope from an inner pocket of his coat, and sorted several
folded papers which were in it.

"I have here," said he, "memoranda of two--chances, shall I call
them?--which seem to me very good, though, as I have already said, every
clew seems good. That is the maddening, the heart-breaking, part of such
an investigation. I have made these brief notes from letters received,
one yesterday, one the day before, from an agent of mine who has been
searching the bains de mer of the north coast. This agent writes that
some one very much resembling poor Arthur has been seen at Dinard and
also at Deauville, and he urges me to come there or to send a man there
at once to look into the matter. You will ask, of course, why this agent
himself does not pursue the clew he has found. Unfortunately, he has
been called to London upon some pressing family matter of his own; he is
an Englishman."

"Why haven't you gone yourself?" asked Ste. Marie.

But the elder man shrugged his shoulders and smiled a tired, deprecatory
smile.

"Oh, my friend," said he, "if I should attempt personally to investigate
one-half of these things, I should be compelled to divide myself into
twenty parts. No, I must stay here. There must be, alas! the spider at
the centre of the web. I cannot go; but if you think it worth while, I
will gladly turn over the memoranda of these last clews to you. They may
be the true clews, they may not. At any rate, some one must look into
them. Why not you and your partner--or shall I say assistant?"