Metropolitan Hotel at New York, and when I leave will keep them posted as to my whereabouts, so that they can forward any letter to me.' 'My dear Ned,' Mr. Hawtrey said, feelingly, 'you are indeed a good friend. I do not know how to thank you enough, but I really do not like you to be wasting your holiday in this fashion.' 'Don't worry about that; if it hadn't been for this I should have been hanging about with no particular object, and should have been heartily sick of doing nothing long before my year was out. This will give an interest and an object in travelling about, and it is always a pleasure to be working for one's dearest friends. There are but few people in England now for whom I really care. I never got on with my brothers, and beyond yourself and kind old Mr. Singleton, I have really no friends except Army men or school chums, like Danvers, and every time I come home their number will diminish. You must remember I am a police officer, and I suppose the instinct of thief-catching is strong in me. Certainty I shall not feel happy until I have got at the root of this mystery. You must remember the hypothesis as to this woman is my own, and I feel that my honour is concerned to prove its correctness; but, mind, Mr. Hawtrey, I particularly request that Dorothy shall know nothing of the matter.' 'Why not, Ned?' 'I have not been successful so far, and in fact have done more harm than good, and the betting is very strongly against my succeeding. They may not have gone to America. I simply choose it because the other ground is occupied, and also because there is an undoubted tendency among criminals to make for the States. In the next place, even if they are in America, it is almost like looking for a needle in a cart-load of hay. Still, if fortune favours me, I may possibly succeed; but if I do not, I certainly do not wish to let Dorothy know that I have been trying. I have wronged her by having doubted her for a moment, and I do not wish to compel her to feel under an obligation to me merely because I have united amusement with a little work on her behalf.' 'Well, I think you are wrong, Ned--wrong altogether; but of course you must do as you like in the matter. Have you sketched out any plan for yourself?'