“We are much obliged to you,” said Larry, when it seemed that no more questions were necessary.

“We’ll do our best, through the papers, to help find your father,” added a gray-haired reporter.

“Now give us his picture,” put in Peter Manton, in a commanding tone.

“We have none to give out at present,” said Grace coldly.  “We are having a number made, showing him as he looked when he went away, and they will be ready in a few days.  The lawyers will attend to that, if my father is not found in the meanwhile.”

“We’ve got to have a picture now!” exclaimed Peter.

“You shut up!”—­thus in a whisper, from another reporter who stood near the representative of the Scorcher.  “You don’t know when you’ve been treated decent.  Half the millionaire families in New York wouldn’t even let us inside the door, let alone telling us all we wanted to know.  Dry up!” And Peter desisted after that rebuke.

Larry managed to be the last one of the reporters to leave the house.  He lingered in the hall, and when he and Grace were there alone he said: 

“One thing I forgot to ask.  When you got back to the house was there any evidence that your father had been here ahead of you?  Was the house shut up while you were in Europe?”

“I’m glad you spoke of that,” the girl replied.  “I had forgotten about it.  Yes, the house was closed all the while we were away, and opened the day mother and I got back.  But, now that you speak of it, I recollect something that seemed strange at the time.  We were a little worried when father did not meet us at the pier, and I had an idea that he might have spent some nights in the house, pending our arrival, though he had said in his letters that if he came over ahead of us he was going to stop at a hotel.  I went to his room——­”

She broke into tears again, and Larry waited, looking out of the big front doors, for he was embarrassed.

“When I looked over his room,” continued Grace, going on bravely, “I saw something was missing, that I knew was on his dresser when we left for Europe.”

“What was it?” asked Larry.

“It was a little picture of mother and myself.  My father was very fond of it.  He must have come to the house and taken it—­one of his last acts before he disappeared.  It made me feel very sad when I thought of it afterward.”

“Perhaps he took the picture to Europe with him, and you did not know it,” suggested Larry, who was beginning to develop the instincts of a detective, as all reporters do, more or less.

“No,” said Grace positively.  “I remember, I was the last one in father’s room before we sailed for Europe.  The carriage was waiting to take us to the pier, and father went out just ahead of me.  He spoke of the picture then, saying he would leave it to keep guard over his room until he came back,” and once more Grace could not keep back her tears.

“Could the picture have been stolen?” asked Larry.