He got Willie’s address easily enough from the theater, and went to call. He found him a little wan and puffy-eyed, but quite recovered, and amazingly cheerful for a man who has only been sober a few hours! “Wrenn?” he repeated. “How should I know? He’d scarcely be staying on at Mortimer’s hotel, I suppose?” Barrison explained that Mortimer’s rooms and effects were in the custody of the police, and that the old valet would not be allowed near them in any case. “I don’t believe that he’s left town,” Willie said, “and I’ll tell you why. He wasn’t at all well fixed for money. I don’t believe Mortimer ever paid him any wages to speak of; whatever it was that held them together, it wasn’t cash. He’s touched me more than once, poor old beggar!” “You! Why you?” “I don’t know,” said Willie simply. “People always do!” Good little fellow! Of course, people always did. “And you think he’d come and borrow money from you, if he meant to leave town?” “I’d not be surprised.” And, as a matter of fact, he did come that very day and for that very reason; and Willie, having ascertained his address, gave it to Barrison over the wire. “I feel rather rotten about telling you, too,” he added. “I don’t know what you want him for, and the poor old guy is awfully cut up about something—scared blue, I should say. Say, Barrison, you don’t suspect _him_, do you?” “Lord, no! But I think he knows who did it.” Willie grunted uncomfortably. “Well, treat him decently,” he urged. “I’m not exactly an inquisitor in my methods, you know,” Jim told him. “How much money did you lend him, Willie?” “Only a ten spot,” said Willie innocently. Barrison laughed and said good-by. Within the hour, he was at the address given him by Coster. It proved to be a shabby, dingy little lodging house east of Second Avenue, and the few men whom the young man met slouching in and out were as shabby and dingy as the place, and had, he thought, a furtive look. Sized up roughly, it had a drably disreputable appearance, as though connected with small, sordid crimes and the unpicturesque derelicts of the underworld. In a dreary hall bedroom on the third floor, he finally found Wrenn. The old man opened the door with evident caution in response to Barrison’s knock, and when he saw the detective, his face became rigid with a terror which he did not even attempt to conceal. Mutely, he stood back and let the visitor enter, closing the door with trembling hands. Then, still speechless, he turned and faced him, his anguished eyes more eloquent than any words could have been. Jim was touched by the man’s misery. He could guess something of what he must be suffering on his daughter’s account. “Don’t look like that, Wrenn,” he said kindly. “I’ve only come to have a talk with you.” The old man bent forward with sudden eagerness. “Then,” he faltered, “you’ve not come to tell me—of—her arrest, sir?” “No,” said Barrison; “I don’t even know where she is. Sit down, man; you look done up.”