THE MEANEST OF ALL trails to follow is a cold trail. Or almost. Perhaps the worst is no trail. It is hard to keep interest up. Then, too, Pallas was a dull place—orderly as a church, where people simply worked and behaved themselves. The days dragged by, and nothing out of the way happened. Neville went through the motions of trying to sell clothing in majestic lots of hundreds, but no one was interested. He even talked vaguely of looking for a site for an outer warehouse for his company. He saw Mr. Carstairs often and became a welcome guest at the house.
Yet with this lack of incident, Neville was at all times alert in his study of the man he was watching. He could not help remembering that little while after the showboat performance that Carstairs had been absent from them. He particula
