Stumph appeared, in answer to the bell.  She turned to go.

“There is nothing more that you can tell me?” he inquired.

“Nothing.”

“I had supposed that.  Your recital sounded pretty complete.”

When the door closed upon her, he stood for a few moments in the middle of the floor, his head bent forward, his hands behind him.  Then he turned and touched another of the system of bells.

Immediately a brisk, boyish looking young man presented himself.

“Fuller,” spoke Ashton-Kirk, “I want instant and complete information upon one Hume, a local numismatist, and Allan Morris, consulting engineer.”

“Very well, sir.”  And Fuller turned at once, and left the room.

CHAPTER III

THE PORTRAITS OF GENERAL WAYNE

When Ashton-Kirk returned that evening from the theatre, where he had gone to witness a much heralded new drama, he sat with a cigar, in his library; and stretching out his length in great comfort, he smoked and smiled and thought of what he had seen and heard.

“The drama as a medium of expression is necessarily limited,” the young man was saying to himself, “and of course, in fitting human action to its narrow bounds, the dramatist is sometimes tempted to ignore certain human elements.  In spots, the people of the play acted like puppets; upon seven different occasions, by actual count, the entire matter would have been cleared up if someone had sharply spoken his mind.  But he did not, and the thing was allowed to become hopelessly involved because of it.”

He knocked the ashes from his cigar; and a smile came to his lips.

“It would not have served the purpose of the dramatist, I suppose; his play would have ended abruptly, and far short of the prescribed time.  He tried to tell a human story and chose an unhuman method.”

There was another pause; the smile now disappeared and a thoughtful look came into his face.

“And yet,” he mused, “is the playwright really so far wrong?  Is his stage story very far removed from actuality after all?  In Miss Edyth Vale, we have a girl of most unusual character, of splendid education, apparently.  And yet in the building of her own drama she has outstripped the inventor of stage plays in the matter of hesitancy.  Her natural inclination urged her to make a firm stand; but other feelings proved the stronger, and she held her tongue much after the fashion of the girl in the play.”

He was puffing at a second cigar when there came a knock on the door, and Fuller entered.

“Well?” said Ashton-Kirk.

“I thought you’d perhaps like to look over this data before morning,” said the young man, as he laid a number of typed sheets and a photograph at Ashton-Kirk’s elbow.  “As you required instant action I got Burgess on the Hume end of it before noon; after luncheon I took up Morris myself.”