The detective may not have been entirely convinced on the first point,
but he was discretion itself, and responded quite cheerfully with an
emphatic:

"Very well. You still want me to find her. I will do my best, sir; but
first, cannot you help me with a suggestion or two?"

"I?"

"There must be some clew to so sudden a freak on the part of a young and
beautiful woman, who, I have taken pains to learn, has not only a clean
record but a reputation for good sense. The Fultons cannot supply it.
She has lived a seemingly open and happy life in their house, and the
mystery is as great to them as to you. But _you_, as her lover and now
her husband, must have been favored with confidences not given to others.
Cannot you recall one likely to put us on the right track? Some fact
prior to the events of to-day, I mean; some fact connected with her past
life; before she went to live with the Fultons?"

"No. Yet let me think; let me think." Mr. Ransom dropped his face into
his hands and sat for a moment silent. When he looked up again, the
detective perceived that the affair was hopeless so far as he was
concerned. "No," he repeated, this time with unmistakable emphasis,
"she has always appeared buoyant and untrammeled. But then I have only
known her six months."

"Tell me her history so far as you know it. What do you know of her life
previous to your meeting her?"