But down in the busy boulevard Ste. Marie stood hesitating on the curb.  There were so many things to be done, in the light of these new developments, that he did not know what to do first.

“Mlle. Coira O’Hara!—­Mademoiselle!” The thought gave him a sudden sting of inexplicable relief and pleasure.  She would be O’Hara’s daughter, then.  And the boy, Arthur Benham (there was no room for doubt in the photographer’s description) had seemed to be badly in love with her.  This was a new development, indeed!  It wanted thought, reflection, consultation with Richard Hartley.  He signalled to a fiacre, and when it had drawn up before him sprang into it and gave Richard Hartley’s address in the Avenue de l’Observatoire.  But when they had gone a little way he changed his mind and gave another address, one in the Boulevard de la Tour Maubourg.  It was where Mlle. Olga Nilssen lived.  She had told him when he parted from her the evening before.

On the way he fell to thinking of what he had learned from the little photographer Bernstein, to setting the facts, as well as he could, in order, endeavoring to make out just how much or how little they signified by themselves or added to what he had known before.  But he was in far too keen a state of excitement to review them at all calmly.  As on the previous evening, they seemed to him to loom to the skies, and again he saw himself successful in his quest—­victorious—­triumphant.  That this leap to conclusions was but a little less absurd than the first did not occur to him.  He was in a fine fever of enthusiasm, and such difficulties as his eye perceived lay in a sort of vague mist to be dissipated later on, when he should sit quietly down with Hartley and sift the wheat from the chaff, laying out a definite scheme of action.

It occurred to him that in his interview with the photographer he had forgotten one point, and he determined to go back, later on, and ask about it.  He had forgotten to inquire as to Captain Stewart’s attitude toward the beautiful lady.  Young Arthur Benham’s infatuation had filled his mind at the time, and had driven out of it what Olga Nilssen had told him about Stewart.  He found himself wondering if this point might not be one of great importance—­the rivalry of the two men for O’Hara’s daughter.  Assuredly that demanded thought and investigation.

He found the prettily furnished apartment in the Avenue de la Tour Maubourg a scene of great disorder, presided over by a maid who seemed to be packing enormous quantities of garments into large trunks.  The maid told him that her mistress, after a sleepless night, had departed from Paris by an early train, quite alone, leaving the servant to follow on when she had telegraphed or written an address.  No, Mlle. Nilssen had left no address at all—­not even for letters or telegrams.  In short, the entire proceeding was, so the exasperated woman viewed it, everything that is imbecile.