“Where is this Wenham Gardner, then?” Tavernake demanded.

Pritchard took his cigar case from his pocket and selected another cigar.

“Say, that’s where you strike the nail right on the head,” he remarked.  “Where is this Wenham Gardner?

I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Tavernake, that to discover his whereabouts is exactly what I am over on this side for.  I have a commission from the family to find out, and a blank cheque to do it with.”

“Do you mean that he has disappeared, then?” asked Tavernake.

“Off the face of the earth, sir,” Pritchard replied.  “Something like two months ago, the young married couple, with Miss Beatrice, started for a holiday tour somewhere down in the west of England.  A few days after they started, Miss Beatrice comes back to London alone.  She goes to a boarding-house, is practically penniless, but she has shaken her sister—­has, I believe, never spoken with her since.  A little later, Elizabeth alone turns up in London.  She has plenty of money, more money than she has ever had the control of before in her life, but no husband.”

“So far, I don’t see anything remarkable about that,” Tavernake interposed.

“That may or may not be,” Pritchard answered, drily.  “This creature, Wenham Gardner—­I hate to call him a man—­was her abject slave—­up till the time they reached London, at any rate.  He would never have quit of his own accord.  He stopped quite suddenly communicating with all his friends.  None of their cables, even, were answered.”

“Why don’t you go and ask Mrs. Gardner where he is?” Tavernake demanded bluntly.

“I have already,” Pritchard declared, “taken that liberty.  With tears in her eyes, she assured me that after some slight quarrel, in which she admits that she was the one to blame, her husband walked out of the house where they were staying, and she has not seen him since.  She was quite ready with all the particulars, and even implored me to help find him.”

“I cannot imagine,” Tavernake said, “why any one should disbelieve her.”

The detective smiled.

“There are a few little outside circumstances,” he remarked, looking at the ash of his cigar.  “In the first place, how do you suppose that this young Wenham Gardner spent the last week of his stay in New York?”

“How should I know?” Tavernake replied, impatiently.

“By realizing every cent of his property on which he could lay his hands,” the detective continued.  “It isn’t at any time an easy business, and the Gardner interest is spread out in many directions, but he must have sailed with something like forty thousand pounds in hard cash.  A suspicious person might presume that that forty thousand pounds has found its way to the stronger of the combination.”

“Anything else?” Tavernake asked.

“I won’t worry you much more,” the detective answered.  “There are a few other circumstances which seem to need explanation, but they can wait.  There is one serious one, however, and that is where you come in.”