Mr. Strangways raised his eyebrows innocently, and shook his head. "I haven't seen any lady, sir." "What? There must have been a lady here. Was to have got on at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street." "Possibly; I only say I didn't see her. As a matter of fact, I've been reading, and I don't think I looked round during the entire journey. Hadn't we better not speak so loud?" he suggested, in a lower tone. "People are listening to us." "Oh, let them go to-- Now look here, Strangways," he began again, speaking softly, but excitedly, "there must be some explanation to this." "Of course there must be; only I can't give it. Perhaps the porter could tell us. Shall I call him?" Mr. Grainger nodded his permission. The colored man with the flashing teeth came up on the broad grin, showing them. "Yep," he replied, in answer to the question: "they was two ladies in them seats all the way f'um Ne' Yawk." "Two ladies?" Mr. Grainger cried, incredulously. "Yes, gen'lemen. Two different ladies. The young one she got in at the Grand Central--fust one in the cyar--and the ole one at a Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street." "Do you mean to say it was an old lady who got in there?" "Yep, gen'lemen; ole and cranky. I 'ain't handled 'em no crankier not since I've bin on this beat. Sick, too. They done get off at Providence, though they was booked right through to Boston, because the ole lady she couldn't go no farther." Mr. Grainger was not a sleuth-hound, but he did what he could in the way of verification. "Did the young lady wear--wear a veil?" The porter scratched his head. "Come to think of it she did--one of them there flowery things"--his forefinger made little whirling designs on his coffee-colored skin--"what makes a kind of pattern-like all over people's face." Because he was frantically seeking a clue, Mr. Grainger blurted out the foolish question: "Was she--pretty?" To answer as a connoisseur and as man to man the African took his time. "Wa-al, not to say p'ooty, she wasn't--but she'd pa-ss. A little black-eyed thing, an' awful smart. One of 'em trained nusses like--very perlite, but a turr'ble boss you could see she'd be, for all she was so soft-spoken. Had cyare of the ole one, who was what you'd call plumb crazy." "That will do." The trail seemed not worth following any further. "There's some mistake," he continued, furiously. "She must be in one of the other cars." Like a collie from the leash he bounded off to make new investigations. In five minutes he was back again, passing up the length of the car and going on to examine those at the other end of the train. His face as he returned was livid; his manner, as far as he dared betray himself before a dozen or twenty spectators, that of a balked wild animal. "Strangways," he swore, as he dropped to the arm of his seat, "you're going to answer for this." Strangways replied, composedly: