"Do I ever know?" she exclaimed wearily. "I haven't seen him since morning, and don't expect to see him before breakfast to-morrow. He's at his club or drinking and carousing, or in some gambling house playing roulette. How do I know?" "It is certainly a most singular case," said the lawyer meditatively. "Mr. Parker and I have gone carefully over his accounts at the Company's office. Everything is perfectly regular. There only remains the missing diamonds. We have detectives working on half a dozen clues but so far we have accomplished nothing. We have also gone to Washington to get the secret service men interested in the case on the ground that if the diamonds are here they were smuggled in and no duty was paid. But we found the secret service men busy following up counterfeiters. The country is being flooded with counterfeit $10 bills--a splendid reproduction, almost defying detection. It is believed that the plates and presses from which they are made are right here in New York and the whole secret service force is at work trying to run the counterfeiters to earth. This is why our diamond case is going so slowly. They are so busy following up the counterfeiters they have no time for us." Ray, much interested, leaned eagerly forward. "A counterfeit ten dollar bill, did you say?" she demanded. "Yes--it is a remarkable counterfeit. You would not know it from a good one. Only an expert can tell the difference. But all these crooks overreach themselves. Clever as they are, they usually leave some mark which betrays them. For example, in printing this bill which bears the head of Lincoln, they have spelled his first name 'Abrahem'--in other words, the engraver made an 'e' when it should have been 'a.'" Ray jumped up, quite excited. Her eyes flashing, she cried. "Isn't that strange! I have a new $10 bill, and I noticed to-day the queer spelling of Abraham. Wouldn't it be funny if I had one of the counterfeits?" The lawyer smiled. "It wouldn't be funny; it would be a tragedy, considering that in a short while from now I am to pay your bills. Where is the bank note?" "I'll run up and get it. It's in my purse." When she had disappeared, Steell turned to his hostess and said: "Have you seen Signor Keralio lately?" "Hardly--you know I dismissed him from the house." The lawyer sat thoughtfully drumming his fingers on the table. Musingly, he said: "Somehow I have a hunch that that fellow knows something about the diamonds. Does Kenneth ever see him?" "I asked him the other day. He said he did not." "That's strange!" exclaimed the lawyer. "It was only yesterday morning that I saw them together in a taxicab." "Where?" demanded Helen, surprised.