"Why?"
"Because, should he become convinced that it is really you, I fear he would insist upon your dropping the case entirely, and that would not suit my plans at all. Come, my child." The Prefect's eyes twinkled with amusement. "Do this thing for me. It will be a little joke, between us. The honeymoon detectives, I called you, once. What an amusing thing, that now you should be working in competition with each other, on the same case!" He began to laugh heartily.
"Well," said Grace, her sense of mischief getting the better of her, "now that I'm here, I suppose I might as well keep busy. Richard won't be here for two days, and I may find out something in that time."
"Excellent!" The Prefect clapped his hand smartly upon his knee. "You have two days' start. In two days, much may be accomplished. Come, let us go over the case in detail."
An hour later, Grace left the Prefect's office in a taxicab, having arranged to have her baggage sent to Monsieur Lefevre's house, where she was to stay while in Paris. Her previous acquaintance with Madame Lefevre made this an ideal arrangement. She was to pose as a friend, in Paris on a visit.
She ordered the driver of the taxicab to take her to Mr. Stapleton's house in the Avenue Kleber.
She found Mrs. Stapleton to be a very pretty and stylish woman of thirty; whose beauty, however, was sadly marred by the intense suffering through which she was passing. The poor creature had scarcely slept for over a week, and her distress was pitiable.
She answered Grace's questions as well as she could, under the circumstances. There was, after all, little to say. The nurse, it appeared, stuck to her story—that the boy had vanished, in the twinkling of an eye, while her back had been turned for but a few moments. Mrs. Stapleton could offer no explanation—attempted none.
"It is all so mysterious—so terrible!" she cried. "Poor Mary—she is too ill to see you, I fear, or I would have her tell you the story herself."
"Too ill?" inquired Grace, who had come more to question the maid, than Mrs. Stapleton. "What is the matter with her?"