Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/179

Rh Rowan. You will let me see you home again this morning? This gentleman is Mr. Trant, a private detective. I want him to come along with us."

The girl acquiesced, and Trant crowded into the little automobile. Rentland turned the coupé skillfully out into the swept path of the street, ran swiftly down Fifth Avenue to Fourteenth Street, and stopped three streets to the east before a house in the middle of the block. The house was as narrow and cramped and as cheaply constructed as its neighbors on both sides. It had lace curtains conspicuous in every window, and impressive statuettes, vases, and gaudy bits of bric-à-brac in the front rooms.

"He told me again that Will must still be off drunk; and Will never takes a drink," she spoke to them for the first time, as they entered the little sitting room.

He' is Welter," Rentland explained to Trant. Will' is Morse, the missing man. Now, Miss Rowan, I have brought Mr. Trant with me because I have asked him to help me find Morse for you, as I promised; and I want you to tell him everything you can about how Landers was killed and how Morse disappeared."

"And remember," Trant interposed, "that I know very little about the American Commodities Company."

"Why, Mr. Trant," the girl gathered herself together, "you cannot help knowing something about the company! It imports almost everything—tobacco, sugar, coffee, wines, olives, and preserved fruits, oils, and all sorts of table delicacies, from all over the