“You are all deceiving me,” she cried, passionately. “I was beginning to suspect it. Now I know.”
“What do you mean?” I cried.
She pointed to the photograph with trembling fingers.
“You have all declared that the name of Maltabar is strange to you. It is a lie! That is the likeness of the man I seek. It is the likeness of Philip Maltabar.”
CHAPTER XVI
“IT WAS MY FATHER”
The two women were standing face to face. Bruce Deville and I had fallen back. There was a moment or two’s breathless silence. Then Adelaide Fortress, with perfect composure, moved over to the girl’s side, and glanced over her shoulder.
“That,” she said, quietly, “is the photograph of a man who has been dead twenty years. His name was not Maltabar.”
“That,” repeated the girl, unshaken, “is the photograph of Philip Maltabar.”