“He is too much occupied with other matters,” said Baron de Vries.

Ste. Marie sat down on the edge of a chair.  “Other matters?” he demanded.  “That sounds mysterious.  What other matters?”

“Oh, there is nothing very mysterious about it,” said the elder man.  He frowned down at his cigarette, and brushed some fallen ash neatly from his knees.  “Captain Stewart,” said he, “is badly worried, and has been for the past year or so—­badly worried over money matters and other things.  He has lost enormous sums at play, as I happen to know, and he has lost still more enormous sums at Auteuil and at Longchamps.  Also, the ladies are not without their demands.”

Ste. Marie gave a shout of laughter.  “Comment donc!” he cried.  “Ce vieillard?”

“Ah, well,” deprecated the other man.  “Vieillard is putting it rather high.  He can’t be more than fifty, I should think.  To be sure, he looks older; but then, in his day, he lived a great deal in a short time.  Do you happen to remember Olga Nilssen?”

“I do,” said Ste. Marie.  “I remember her very well, indeed.  I was a sort of go-between in settling up that affair with Morrison.  Morrison’s people asked me to do what I could.  Yes, I remember her well, and with some pleasure.  I felt sorry for her, you know.  People didn’t quite know the truth of that affair.  Morrison behaved very badly to her.”

“Yes,” said Baron de Vries, “and Captain Stewart has behaved very badly to her also.  She is furious with rage or jealousy—­or both.  She goes about, I am told, threatening to kill him, and it would be rather like her to do it one day.  Well, I have dragged in all this scandal by way of showing you that Stewart has his hands full of his own affairs just now, and so cannot give the attention he ought to give to hunting out his nephew.  As you suggest, his agents may be deceiving him.  I don’t know.  I suppose they could do it easily enough.  If I were you I should set to work quite independently of him.”

“Yes,” said Ste. Marie, in an absent tone.  “Oh yes, I shall do that, you may be sure.”  He gave a sudden smile.  “He’s a queer type, this Captain Stewart.  He begins to interest me very much.  I had never suspected this side of him, though I remember now that I once saw him coming out of a milliner’s shop.  He looks rather an ascetic—­rather donnish, don’t you think?  I remember that he talked to me one day quite pathetically about feeling his age and about liking young people round him.  He’s an odd character.  Fancy him mixed up in an affair with Olga Nilssen!  Or, rather, fancy her involved in an affair with him!  What can she have seen in him?  She’s not mercenary, you know—­at least, she used not to be.”

“Ah! there,” said Baron de Vries, “you enter upon a terra incognita.  No one can say what a woman sees in this man or in that.  It’s beyond our ken.”

He rose to take his leave, and Ste. Marie went with him to the door.