‘Right, Miss Fulmort. You have an eye for a likeness. These fellows have such a turn for having their portraits done, that in these affairs we always try if the shilling photographers have duplicates. This will be sent to town by the next train.’
‘I am not sure that I should have known it if I had not seen it before.’
‘Indeed! Should you object to tell me under what circumstances?’
‘At the photographer’s, at the time he was at Hiltonbury,’ said Phœbe. ‘I went to him with one of my sisters, and we were amused by finding many of the likenesses of our servants. Smithson and another came in to be taken while we were there, and we afterwards saw this portrait when calling for my sister’s.’
‘Another—another servant?’ said the keen captain.
‘Yes, one of the maids.’
‘Her name, if you please.’
‘Indeed,’ said Phœbe, distressed, as she saw this jotted down. ‘I cannot bring suspicion and trouble on any one.’
‘You will do no such thing, Miss Fulmort. We will only keep our eye on her. Neither she, nor any one else, shall have any ground for supposing her under suspicion, but it is our duty to miss no possible indication. Will you oblige me with her name?’
‘She is called Jane, but I do not know her real name,’ said Phœbe, with much reluctance, and in little need of the injunction to secrecy on this head. The general eagerness to hunt down the criminals saddened her, and she was glad to be released, with thanks for her distinct evidence. The kind old chairman then met her, quite with an air of fatherly protection, such as elderly men often wear towards orphaned maidens, and