Page:The Millbank Case - 1905 - Eldridge.djvu/169

 the two may be the same. The probabilities, however, are against it."

"What follows then?" demanded McManus.

"That the actor in at least one case, and possibly in both, was not the principal; and that the more there are engaged in the affair, the better chance we have of discovery. It is the one-man affair that baffles."

None the less, when McManus was gone, Trafford summed up the successes of three weeks and found them mortifyingly few. A package of papers missed and not found; an innocent man under suspicion; a woman of prominence proved the mother of an illegitimate child; a thwarted attempt upon his own life; a wounded Canadian apparently wiped off the earth; and a respectable citizen traced on a midnight visit to another respectable citizen at Waterville. It was not on such achievements as these that he had built his reputation.

With the thought of the missing Canadian, his anxiety returned. It was impossible that he had been spirited away to Canada, yet it was undeniable that he was gone. He went out and looked at the