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 got to know about it. Cole spent a lot of money trying to trace her, and so did Mr. Minute."

Saul Arthur Mann saw a faint gleam of daylight.

"Mr. Minute, too?" he asked. "Was he working with Mr. Cole?"

"So far as I can find out, they were both working independent of the other—Mr. Cole and Mr. Minute," explained Mr. Wiseman. "It is what I call a mystery within a mystery, and it has never been properly cleared up. I thought something was coming out about it at the trial, but you know what a mess the lawyers made of it."

It was Constable Wiseman's firm conviction that Frank Merrill had escaped through the incompetence of the crown authorities, and there were moments in his domestic circle when he was bitter and even insubordinate on the subject.

"You still think Mr. Merrill was guilty?" asked Saul Arthur Mann as he took his leave of the other.