“Oh, I have plenty,” said the elder man.  “A hundred.  More than I can possibly look after.”  He gave a little chuckling laugh.  “I’ve been waiting for you to come to me,” he said.  “It was a little ungenerous, perhaps, but we all love to say, ‘I told you so.’  Yes, I have a great quantity of clews, and of course they all seem to be of the greatest and most exciting importance.  That’s a way clews have.”

He took an envelope from an inner pocket of his coat, and sorted several folded papers which were in it.

“I have here,” said he, “memoranda of two—­chances, shall I call them?—­which seem to me very good, though, as I have already said, every clew seems good.  That is the maddening, the heart-breaking, part of such an investigation.  I have made these brief notes from letters received, one yesterday, one the day before, from an agent of mine who has been searching the bains de mer of the north coast.  This agent writes that some one very much resembling poor Arthur has been seen at Dinard and also at Deauville, and he urges me to come there or to send a man there at once to look into the matter.  You will ask, of course, why this agent himself does not pursue the clew he has found.  Unfortunately, he has been called to London upon some pressing family matter of his own; he is an Englishman.”

“Why haven’t you gone yourself?” asked Ste. Marie.

But the elder man shrugged his shoulders and smiled a tired, deprecatory smile.

“Oh, my friend,” said he, “if I should attempt personally to investigate one-half of these things, I should be compelled to divide myself into twenty parts.  No, I must stay here.  There must be, alas! the spider at the centre of the web.  I cannot go; but if you think it worth while, I will gladly turn over the memoranda of these last clews to you.  They may be the true clews, they may not.  At any rate, some one must look into them.  Why not you and your partner—­or shall I say assistant?”

“Why, thank you!” cried Ste. Marie.  “A thousand thanks!  Of course, I shall be—­we shall be glad to try this chance.  On the face of it, it sounds very reasonable.  Your nephew, from what I remember of him, is much more apt to be in some place that is amusing, some place of gayety, than hiding away where it is merely dull, if he has his choice in the matter—­that is, if he is free.  And yet—­” He turned and frowned thoughtfully at the elder man.  “What I want to know,” said he, “is how the boy is supporting himself all this time?  You say he had no money, or very little, when he went away.  How is he managing to live if your theory is correct—­that he is staying away of his own accord?  It costs a lot of money to live as he likes to live.”

Captain Stewart nodded.

“Oh, that,” said he—­“that is a question I have often proposed to myself.  Frankly, it’s beyond me.  I can only surmise that poor Arthur, who had scattered a small fortune about in foolish loans, managed, before he actually disappeared (mind you, we didn’t begin to look for him until a week had gone by)—­managed to collect some of this money, and so went away with something in pocket.  That, of course, is only a guess.”