"You don't say! What is it?"
"Well, when I had fixed things to suit me, and had received the thanks of the lady, when I had also satisfied myself that she was just as anxious for secrecy about the thing as I was, although I couldn't tell exactly why she was so, I hiked it back for town. It was too late, then, to get the other story I had been after, and I had ceased to care much about it, anyhow; and then, when I was ready to leave, out came the chauffeur, and he said, if I didn't mind, he'd ride part of the way back with me. He and the woman had been whispering together, just before that, and I sized it up that she had given him certain instructions to carry out. Anyhow, when we arrived at the scene of the accident, the chauffeur got down, and I came on, to the city, alone. I'm not going to tell you why the chauffeur left me, at the scene of the accident, because that would give you a pointer which I don't wish you to have. He had a certain duty to perform which I did not guess at, just then, but which was all plain to me the next A. M., if anybody should ask you. It amazed me, and it added immensely to the mystery. And now, brace yourself, fellows, for the real mystery—the one I am chasing at the present time."
"We're all ears, Radnor."
"I telephoned to my friend the doc, the next morning. He reported that the man was doing well, and that the lady was hanging over him like a possum over a ripe persimmon. I telephoned again that afternoon, again the next morning, and every day after that, but the doc kept telling me that, although the man was doing well, and the lady was still there with him, I had better not butt in until he tipped me the wink—and I'll give you my word that he managed to keep me on the hooks for ten days before I tumbled."
"Tumbled to what?"
"You shall hear. I got leary about things on the tenth day, for this telephoning was getting monotonous, and borrowed Brokaw's car again, but when I got to the little hidden sanatorium, my birds had flown, and—"
"Your birds had flown! What do you mean, Radnor?"
"Just what I say. The man and the woman had gone, and the doc wouldn't tell me when they went away, or anything at all about them. He said he had been well paid for keeping quiet, and I couldn't get any more information out of him than you could dig out of a clam. What is more, that chauffeur hadn't been seen by anybody since I dropped him out of the machine, at the scene of the accident—and that is the story. I don't know whether the doc lied to me, or not. He wouldn't let me go through his place, and, for all I know, the man and the girl were both there when I went back. On the other hand, they might have been gone a week, already. I've been unearthing every clue I could think of, since then, to get trace of them, but you might as well look for saw dust in hades, as for clues about those two—or rather the three of them, for I am satisfied that the chauffeur returned to the sanatorium after he had performed the errand he was sent to do."
"What gets me," said Sommers, "is how people as prominent as you say they were could fade out of sight like that, and leave no trace behind them. I should have thought there would be a hue and cry after them that would have stirred every newspaper in town."
"Well—all that rather gets me, too. Of course, I could make a big story out of it, as it stands; but that isn't all of the story, and I want it all."