Orr saw the picture and saw too that, while perhaps rather flattering, it did not resemble Marie in the least. As a matter of fact it was an art editor's fake. But that, of course, the public did not know and being fed on fakes would not have cared if it had known.
Then more mystery followed. What were her antecedents? Who were her people? Whence had she come? No one could say. What alone could be said was that a year previous Loftus had taken for her an apartment at the Arundel, where she had resided in a manner otherwise genteel, though with, latterly, but one servant, a negress named Blanche.
At the time the police were as much interested in the servant as the public in the girl. The latter in departing had had the forethought to leave the former behind, and, from her, information relevant and irrelevant was obtained.
To Mr. Peacock for instance, one of the district attorneys, Blanche related that at dinner her mistress liked sweetbreads and sorrel with, now and then, a chocolate souffle.
Mr. Peacock was a florid man with the face of a cupid, the guile of a fox and the voice of an ogre. "I don't care for that," he told her.
"Nor I," Blanche agreeably replied.
"I mean," said Mr. Peacock, "that I don't care about her victuals. She was in love with the dead man, wasn't she?"
"I guess so," Blanche with profound if unconscious psychology replied. "She was always scrapping with him. She——"
"Tell me," Peacock interrupted, "what happened the last night he was there."
"It was awful. He was trying to get rid of her. He wasn't much and I told him so, but he was all she had. When I first came to her she said she was an orphan, that she hadn't anybody anywhere, that they were all dead."