two or three years ago. The wife of one of the English professors
- er, if you will pardon me, Mrs. Haythorne - disappeared with some
San Francisco doctor, I understood, though his name does not just
now come to my lips. Do you remember the incident?"

Haythorne nodded his head. "Made quite a stir at the time. His
name was Womble - Graham Womble. He had a magnificent practice. I
knew him somewhat."

"Well, what I was trying to get at was what had become of them. I
was wondering if you had heard. They left no trace, hide nor
hair."

"He covered his tracks cunningly." Haythorne cleared his throat.
"There was rumor that they went to the South Seas - were lost on a
trading schooner in a typhoon, or something like that."

"I never heard that," Messner said. "You remember the case, Mrs.
Haythorne?"

"Perfectly," she answered, in a voice the control of which was in
amazing contrast to the anger that blazed in the face she turned
aside so that Haythorne might not see.

The latter was again on the verge of asking his name, when Messner
remarked:

"This Dr. Womble, I've heard he was very handsome, and - er - quite
a success, so to say, with the ladies."