"Humph! I do not wonder you thought it worth your while to follow up the pair, if one of them is named Adams and the other Eva. But, Sweetwater, the longer you serve on the force the more you will learn that coincidences as strange and unexpected as these do occur at times, and must be taken into account in the elucidation of a difficult problem. Much as I may regret to throw cold water on your hopes, there are reasons for believing that the young man and woman whom we are seeking are not the ones you have busied yourself about for the last two days. Certain facts which have come to light would seem to show that if she had a husband at all, his name would not be Thomas Adams, but Felix, and as the facts I have to bring forward are most direct and unimpeachable, I fear you will have to start again, and on a new tack." But Sweetwater remained unshaken, and eyed his superior with a vague smile playing about his lips. "You have not asked me, sir, where I have spent all the time which has elapsed since I saw you last. The investigations I have mentioned did not absorb more than a day." "Very true. Where have you been, Sweetwater?" "To Montgomery, sir, to that small town in Pennsylvania from which Mr. Poindexter and his daughter registered." "Ah, I see! And what did you learn there? Something directly to the point?" "I learned this, that John Poindexter, father of Eva, had for a friend in early life one Amos Cadwalader." "Amos!" repeated Mr. Gryce, with an odd look. "Yes, and that this Amos had a son, Felix." "Ah!" "You see, sir, we must be on the right track; coincidences cannot extend through half a dozen names." "You are right. It is I who have made a mistake in drawing my conclusions too readily. Let us hear about this Amos. You gathered something of his history, no doubt." "All that was possible, sir. It is closely woven in with that of Poindexter, and presents one feature which may occasion you no surprise, but which, I own, came near nonplussing me. Though the father of Felix, his name was not Adams. I say was not, for he has been dead six months. It was Cadwalader. And Felix went by the name of Cadwalader, too, in the early days of which I have to tell, he and a sister whose name----" "Well?" "Was Evelyn." "Sweetwater, you are an admirable fellow. So the mystery is ours." "The history, not the mystery; that still holds. Shall I relate what I know of those two families?" "At once: I am as anxious as if I were again twenty-three and had been in your shoes instead of my own for the last three days."