It took but a glance to show me that it was a picture of the man whose cause I was at that moment espousing, the man I had followed from the North River pier-end the night before. A second glance showed me that the photograph had been taken in London; it bore the stamped inscription: "Garet Childs, Regent's Park, N. W."
The woman's sustained attitude of anticipation, of expectation unfulfilled, puzzled me. I saw nothing remarkable about the picture or her possession of it.
"This, I believe, is the man you're trying to save from the clutches of a wire-tapper named Whelan, Coke Whelan, as you call him?"
I acknowledged that it was.
"Now look at the signature written across it," she prompted.
I did as she suggested. Inscribed there I read: "Sincerely and more, Duncan Cory Whelan."
"Have I now made the situation comparatively clear to you?" she asked, watching my face as I looked from her to the photograph and then back to her again.
"I must confess, I don't quite grasp it," I admitted, thinking at the moment how her face in the strong side-light from the windows had taken on a quite accidental touch of pathos.
"It's simply that the man you are trying to save from Coke Whelan is Coke Whelan himself."
"That's impossible!" was my exclamation.