A good half hour before noon a messenger boy came in and handed Mary an envelope. She scanned the cablegram quickly, and handed it over to Quincy. It read, “Tombini banker, Drake American consul, Palermo, Sicily.” “You see,” said Mary, with a smile, “matters are simplifying themselves considerably. I shall cable now to Drake at Palermo, and find out what I can about the original signer of the bill of exchange. This is Wednesday. The Gallia sails from here to England on Saturday. You had better engage passage, and make arrangements to go then. Come back late this afternoon, and I will tell you what has developed in the meantime.” After engaging a stateroom for Saturday, Quincy returned to Cambridge, packed what things he needed for a couple of days, and with Tom came back to Boston, intending to go to Fernborough on the late train in the evening. “The answer has just come,” said Mary, when Quincy saw her later in the day, “but, I am sorry it is not as satisfactory as I could wish. Mr. Drake is away from Palermo at present, and beyond the fact that a Quincy Adams Sawyer had registered at the consulate about a month ago and has since left the town, they seem to know nothing about the matter.” “Well,” said Quincy, “we have a starting point anyway, and more than we had in Bob Wood's case in the beginning. I shall go directly to Fernborough Hall to see my mother for a day or so, but I think I will not mention the real reason for my trip abroad until I have found out more. I will tell her that Tom and I are anxious to get to the continent as soon as possible, and that we will return to England later on. Then we will go down through Italy to Sicily, and start in there tracing the signer of that bill of exchange.” “I think that is the best plan,” said Mary. “In the meantime I will keep in close touch with Mr. Merry here, and if another one of those bills of exchange comes in I will cable you, care of your bankers in London, the names of the endorsers.” “Mary,” said Quincy as he took her hand at parting, and held it perhaps a little longer than was really necessary, “I can't thank you for all you have done for me. I am truly grateful, and wish there were some way in which I could show you my true appreciation.” “Your thanks are all I want. Besides, you may be the means of bringing a very clever criminal to justice,” and the smile left her face as she said it, “for I am afraid that is all you will find. You must not hope too much for what seems the impossible.”