"I'll tell you," replied Gibelin, delighted with his sensation. "It's quite a story. I suppose you know that when this woman slipped out of the Ansonia, she drove directly to the house where we arrested the American. You knew that?" He turned to Coquenil.
"No."
"Well, I happened to speak to the concierge there and she remembers perfectly a lady in an evening gown with a rain coat over it like the one this woman escaped in. This lady sent a note by the concierge up to the apartment of that she-dragon, the sacristan's wife, where M. Kittredge was calling on Alice."
"Ah! What time was that?"
"About a quarter to ten. The note was for M. Kittredge. It must have been a wild one, for he hurried down, white as a sheet, and drove off with the lady. Fifteen minutes later they stopped at his hotel and he went up to his room, two steps, at a time, while she waited in the cab. And Jean, the garçon, had a good look at her and he told Rose, the chambermaid, and she had a look and recognized her as the woman whose photograph she had often seen in the American's room."
"Ah, that's lucky!" rejoined the judge. "And you have this photograph?"
"No, but——"
"You said you found it?" put in Coquenil.
"I did, that is, I found a piece of it, a corner that wasn't burned."
"Burned?" cried the others.