"The original, you know," Dr. Blythe went on hurriedly, "hung in the château of the Comtesse de la Fontaine in the Forest of Compiegne, and was immensely valuable—oh—worth probably a hundred thousand dollars or more."
A moment later Dr. Blythe leaned over with ill-suppressed excitement. "After I brought her around the first time she confided to me that it had been entrusted to her by the Comtesse for safe-keeping during the war, that she had taken it first to London, but fearing it would not be safe even there, had brought it to New York."
"H'm," mused Kennedy, "that is indeed strange. What's your theory, then,—foul play?"
Dr. Blythe looked from Kennedy to me, then said slowly, "Yes—but we can't find a trace of poison. Dr. Leslie—the Coroner—I believe you know him—and I can find nothing, in fact. It is most incomprehensible."
I noticed that Kennedy was watching Dr. Blythe rather keenly and, somehow, I fell to trying to fathom both his story and himself, without, I confess, any result.
"I should like to look her apartment over," remarked Craig with alacrity, needing no second invitation to take up a mystery that already promised many surprises.
The New Studio Apartments were in a huge twelve-story ornate Renaissance affair on upper Park Avenue, an example of the rapidly increasing co-operative idea which the impractical artistic temperament has proved soundly practical.
It was really a studio building, too, designed for those artists who preferred luxury and convenience to the more romantic atmosphere of the "Alley"—which is the way the initiated refer to the mews back of Washington Square, known as Macdougal's Alley, famous in fact and fiction.
Rhoda Fleming's was a most attractively arranged suite, with a large studio commanding the north light and having a ceiling twice as high as the ordinary room, which allowed of the other rooms being, as it were, on two floors, since their ceilings were of ordinary height. On every side, as we entered, we could see works of art in tasteful profusion.
Since the removal of the body of the beautiful but unfortunate young art student, no one had been left there, except the maid, Leila. Leila was herself a very pretty girl, one of those who need neither fine clothes nor expensive jewels to attract attention. In fact she had neither. I noticed that she was neatly and tastefully dressed, however, and wore a plain gold band on the ring finger of her left hand. She seemed to be heartbroken over the death of her mistress, but how much of it was genuine, I could not say, though I am frank to admit that even before I saw her I had determined that she was worth watching.