anything to anyone in the house about it, and keep a sharp watch
on the actions of any of the servants who may go into Mrs.
Close's room."

"Well," said Craig, "there is nothing more to be done
immediately." We had once more regained the street and were
walking up-town. We walked in silence for several blocks.

"Yes," mused Craig, "there is something you can do, after all,
Walter. I would like you to look up Gregory and Close and
Lawrence. I already know something about them. But you can find
out a good deal with your newspaper connections. I would like to
have every bit of scandal that has ever been connected with them,
or with Mrs. Close, or," he added significantly, "with any other
woman. It isn't necessary to say that not a breath of it must be
published--yet."

I found a good deal of gossip, but very little of it, indeed,
seemed to me at the time to be of importance. Dropping in at the
St. Francis Club, where I had some friends, I casually mentioned
the troubles of the Huntington Closes. I was surprised to learn
that Close spent little of his time at the Club, none at home,
and only dropped into the hospital to make formal inquiries as to
his wife's condition. It then occurred to me to drop into the
office of Society Squibs, whose editor I had long known. The
editor told me, with that nameless look of the cynical
scandalmonger, that if I wanted to learn anything about
Huntington Close I had best watch Mrs. Frances Tulkington, a very
wealthy Western divorcee about whom the smart set were much
excited, particularly those whose wealth made it difficult to