"Come quick!" she cried to Leslie. "Archibald is worse; he is dying!" * * * * * "I will serve you to the extent of my power," Richard Stanhope had said, holding Leslie Warburton's hands in his, and looking straight into her appealing eyes. "I will find the little one, if I can." Nevertheless he went straight to the Agency, and, standing before his Chief, said: "I am ready to begin work for Mr. Parks, sir. I shall quit the Agency to-day. Give Vernet my compliments, and tell him I wish him success. It may be a matter of days, weeks, or months, but you will not see me here again until I can tell you _who killed Arthur Pearson_." CHAPTER XXIV. VERNET ON THE TRAIL. The discovery made by Van Vernet, on the day of his visit to the Warburton mansion, aroused him to wonderful activity, and made him more than ever eager to ferret out the hiding-place of Papa Francoise, who, he felt assured, could throw much light upon the mystery surrounding the midnight murder. He set a constant watch upon the deserted Francoise house, and kept the dwelling of the Warburtons under surveillance, while he, in person, gravitated between these two points of interest, during the time when he was not employed in collecting items of information concerning the Warburton family. Little by little he gathered his bits of family history, and was now familiar with many facts concerning the invalid master of the house and his second marriage, and the travelled and aristocratic brother, who, so rumor said, was proud as a crown-prince, and blameless as Sir Galahad. "These immaculate fellows are not to my taste," muttered Van Vernet, on the morning following the day when Stanhope held his last interview with Leslie, as he took his station at a convenient point of observation, prepared to pass the forenoon in watching the Warburton mansion. His first glance toward the massive street-door caused him to start and mutter an imprecation. The bell was muffled, and the door-plate hidden beneath heavy folds of crape. Archibald Warburton was dead. The hand that stole his little one had struck his death-blow, as surely as if by a dagger thrust. His feeble frame, unable to endure those long days of suspense, had given his soul back to its origin, his body back to nature. Within was a household doubly stricken; without, a two-fold danger menaced. "So," muttered Van Vernet, as he gazed upon this insignia of death; "so my patron is dead; that stately, haughty aristocrat has lost all interest in his wife's secrets. Well, so have I--but I have transferred my interest to his brother, Alan Warburton. Death caused by shock following loss of his little daughter, no doubt. That tall, straight seigneur looked like a man able to outlive a shock, too."