Captain Stewart looked thoughtfully at the younger man.

“No,” he said, at last.  “I am sorry to say they don’t seem to have accomplished much—­except to prove that there are a great many places poor Arthur has not been to and a great many people who have not seen him.  After all, that is something—­the elimination of ground that need not be worked over again.”  He set down the glass from which he had been drinking.  “I cannot agree with your theory,” he said.  “I cannot agree that such work as this is best left to an accidental solution.  Accidents are too rare.  We have tried to go at it in as scientific a way as could be managed—­by covering large areas of territory, by keeping the police everywhere on the alert, by watching the boy’s old friends and searching his favorite haunts.  Personally, I am inclined to think that he managed to slip away to America very early in the course of events, before we began to search for him, and, of course, I am having a careful watch kept there as well as here.  But no trace has appeared as yet—­nothing at all trustworthy.  Meanwhile, I continue to hope and to work, but I grow a little discouraged.  In any case, though, we shall hear of him in three months more if he is alive.”

“Why three months?” asked Ste. Marie.  “What do you mean by that?”

“In three months,” said Captain Stewart, “Arthur will be of age, and he can demand the money left him by his father.  If he is alive he will turn up for that.  I have thought, from the first, that he is merely hiding somewhere until this time should be past.  He—­you must know that he went away very angry, after a quarrel with his grandfather?  My father is not a patient man.  He may have been very harsh with the boy.”

“Ah, yes,” said Hartley; “but no boy, however young or angry, would be foolish enough to risk an absolute break with the man who is going to leave him a large fortune.  Young Benham must know that his grandfather would never forgive him for staying away all this time if he stayed away of his own accord.  He must know that he’d be taking tremendous risks of being cut off altogether.”

“And besides,” added Ste. Marie, “it is quite possible that your father, sir, may die at any time—­any hour.  And he’s very angry at his grandson.  He may have cut him off already.”

Captain Stewart’s eyes sharpened suddenly, but he dropped them to the glass in his hand.

“Have you any reason for thinking that?” he asked.

“No,” said Ste. Marie.  “I beg your pardon.  I shouldn’t have said it.  That is a matter which concerns your family alone.  I forgot myself.  The possibility occurred to me suddenly for the first time.”

But the elder man looked up at him with a smile.

“Pray don’t apologize,” said he.  “Surely we three can speak frankly together!  And, frankly, I know nothing of my father’s will.  But I don’t think he would cut poor Arthur off, though he is, of course, very angry about the boy’s leaving in the manner he did.  No, I am sure he wouldn’t cut him off.  He was fond of the lad, very fond—­as we all were.”