“I don’t know,” said the Chief. “But it’s a possible line of investigation, isn’t it? And it’s one that you haven’t touched? Now do you see where the Department might be of some help to you in your search?” “But Mrs. Furneau—why, the Morrisons know her quite well. The thing’s out of the question.” The Chief smiled slowly. “That’s the trouble with you amateurs. You go into an investigation like this with preconceived ideas—and all you look for is clews that fit in with those ideas. We suspect everybody until we can prove that they’ve had nothing to do with the affair. Do you see the difference?” I nodded. “Well, I’ll try it.” “Now here’s something else,” he went on. “We’ve come to the conclusion that, without a previous fairly intimate knowledge of the future movements of some of these girls, the abductions would have been impossible. We also deduce that they would have been very difficult, if not impossible, without actual acquaintanceship, in several cases at least. That places the gang, for I think it must be a gang, within certain high social limits. “But during the time that these girls have been disappearing, there have also been a great many cases of addiction to drugs coming to light—and all these cases, without exception, have been highly placed socially. In fact, the Department began investigating the drug cases long before the abductions began. Many of the drug addicts are women. All the ones to whom I have reference are addicts of a peculiar kind. But almost without exception these addicts are men and women of importance and influence, either through position or wealth.” “Can you connect them in any way with the abductions?” I asked. “No. Not definitely. In fact, not at all, except by inference through the facts peculiar to both. But the very fact that we cannot get anything on any of these people, either the people who supply these drugs or the abductors, goes to prove that there is an extraordinary power and skill in organization behind each gang. Therefore, by inference, it may be the same organizer or group of organizers behind both. But, so far, we have not been able to connect the two things further than that, even by inference.” Moore stirred in his place on the bed beside me and the Chief glanced up at him. “There’s one other feature to it, sir,” he said. “I’ve been working on the abductions and nothing else. But they had a damned good try at picking me off. Clarke worked on the drug smuggling only—and——” The Chief nodded. “Neither the one gang—nor the other, if there are two gangs, will hesitate at murder,” he said quietly. “Good Lord, do you mean to say in this day and age——”