“It’s a great big stone wall,” said Patsy, “and we’re up agin’ it with our noses scratching against the rough edges.” Patsy’s terse description caused them all to laugh. “Chief,” asked Chick, “do you think that you know the whole of the life of this man, Ellison, here in New York for the past two years?” “Perhaps not so well,” answered Nick, “as I might know if we had made a careful search into it. But, before Mr. Sanborn consented to his daughter’s marriage, and, subsequent thereto, he had inquiries made as to the young man and how he was living, what he was doing, and he became satisfied that there was nothing wrong in it.” “Well,” said Chick, “it goes that a man don’t disappear as Ellison did without a reason.” “That is true,” said Ida. “Had he left at any other time, or any other place, there would not have been so much in it.” “What is your point?” said Nick, stopping in his pacing up and down and standing before Ida. “What I mean,” said Ida, “is this. If Mr. Ellison had been in his room, say three months ago, reading, or smoking, or passing his time away until bedtime, and had been called upon by some one who came to see him, and, going out with him, had not returned, it might have been said that he had allowed himself to drift away without strong reasons. But to leave a house under the circumstances Mr. Ellison did, within two hours after his marriage, and just as he was prepared to take his place at the reception to receive his many wedding guests, shows that there must have been reasons so strong that he dare not pass them by.” Nick nodded his head as if agreeing with this, and Chick said: “And crime of some kind is at the bottom of those reasons.” Nick turned sharply on Chick and asked: “What do you suspect?” “I suspect nothing,” replied Chick. “I am trying to say that nothing but a crime, or, a wrong, would make a man like Ellison leave as he did.” “The reasoning is good,” said Nick. “Let us see. The most important thing that could occur to Ellison, as we know it, is the possible succession to the title and estate of his family. Now, the Earl of Kerleigh is alive, and there are three lives between him and Ellison. Suppose, for instance, that all of those four men were on a yacht and were drowned at one and the same time. That would make Ellison the Earl of Kerleigh and change him from an unimportant person to a very important person in England; in other words, changing the whole course of his life. It is hard to conceive anything more important to occur to Ellison. Suppose that the big cape man Patsy saw, brought him that information. While it would shock and excite him, there could be no reason why he should not tell his newly-made bride and her family, even if it were necessary for him to leave on the minute.” “And that,” said Ida, “forces us to believe that there was some wrong or some crime back of this hasty departure.” “I say, chief,” said Patsy, “did any steamer sail to-day since twelve o’clock?”