So I laughed, with the best assumption of the actor’s art of which I was capable. “Let him off, Karl!” I cried. “The next time we seek information I am sure he will give it to us readily.” Karl took my cue and grinned in concert. I led him away to a lounge, but, ever and anon, the clerk watched us from the corner of his eye, and I chortled to see him comparing the clock with the time stated on a telegram which reached him a few minutes later, wherein the departure of the _Merlin_ special was announced in exact concord with Karl’s statement. Meanwhile I learnt what had taken place. No sooner had Grier heard the unexpected fact of the steamer’s non-arrival than he, quite carelessly, “sent out,” as he phrased it, to find Maggie and the ship. He experienced no difficulty this time. He saw the girl and her mother standing in a huge shed and conversing with a foreign-looking person. Through several doors he distinguished the brass-rimmed port-holes and white rails of a large vessel, and he heard a hum of voices, the clanking of cranes, and the tramping of many feet. “From what I gathered,” he said, “Signor Bocci was surprised, even annoyed, to learn that Miss Hutchinson was not prepared to accept at once the contract which Steindal offered. ‘No artiste has ever obtained more favorable terms from my principal,’ he told her. ‘Is it that you demand more money, or more frequent appearances?’ ‘Oh, no,’ said Maggie, and she has such a nice, sweet voice; ‘I am, indeed, greatly obliged to Mr. Steindal, and to you, signor, for having troubled to come to Liverpool. But I really must ask you to let arrangements stand in abeyance until my mother and I meet you in London.’ ‘But what am I to cable to Steindal?’ he asked. ‘Why cable this evening?’ she persisted. ‘Am I such an important little person that the world is waiting breathlessly for my decision?’ That is all I heard while I was paralyzing the clerk.” “How was Miss Hutchinson dressed?” “In a navy blue costume trimmed with black braid. She wore a white yachting cap and white gloves. Mrs. Hutchinson was dressed in black, with a sort of black lace mantle and a black bonnet of lace and feathers.” “And Bocci--what is _he_ like?” “An ordinary, under-sized, pasty-faced Italian, fiercely outlined with black hair, eyebrows, and moustache.” I went to the bureau again. The inquiry clerk was apprehensive, but I only wanted the London Directory. And therein I hunted up the entry: “Bocci, Giovanni, concert agent,” with a number in a Strand side-street. “How did you know that Steindal’s London representative was named Bocci?” I asked Karl. “Oh, I forgot to tell you that Miss Hutchinson held his card in her hand.”