"Yes; a Frenchwoman, both by birth and marriage. Her husband, a professor of languages, was located some sixteen years ago, in New Orleans."
"I never knew him. Indeed, I find it hard to understand why I should be expected to show any interest in him or his wife."
"Well, I will tell you. You may not have known the Madame; but it is very certain that she knew you."
"She?" This certainly unexpected blow seemed to make some impression. "Will you give me your reasons for such an assertion? Was the name Duclos a false one? Was her name like that of her daughter, Willetts? If so, allow me to assure you that I never heard of a Willetts any more than I have of a Duclos. That a woman of whatever name and nationality should desert her child fills me with horror. I cannot speak of her, dead though she be, with any equanimity. A mother and act as she did! She herself was to blame, and only she for what happened to that beautiful girl—so young—so sweet—so innocent. I have a weakness for youth. To me a girl of that type is sacred. Had I been blessed with such a child——But there, I am straying again from our point. What makes you say Madame Duclos knew me?"
Before replying, the Coroner rose, and taking a small package from his desk, opened it, and laid out before the astonished eyes of Mr. Roberts the freshly printed photograph of himself with which we are so well acquainted, and then the half-demolished one which for all its imperfections showed that it had been originally struck off from the same negative.
"Do you recognize this portrait of yourself as one taken by Fredericks some dozen years ago?"
"Certainly. But this other? This end and corner of what must have been my picture too, where was it found?"
"Ah, that is what I have called you here to learn. This remnant of what you have just admitted to have been your photograph also was found in the very condition in which you see it now, in the wastebasket of the room where Madame Duclos lodged previous to her flight to the Catskills."
"This! with the face——"
"Just that! With the face riddled out of it by bullets! She shot six into it at intervals; waiting for the passing of an elevated train by her windows, in the hope that the bigger noise would drown the lesser."