“For twelve years I have been living in a nightmare,” she said, “a nightmare which my own vanity created. I think I am awake now, and when the police trace me—and I am so certain they will trace me that I have left the stage—”
“Was that the reason?” he exclaimed in surprise.
“That is one of the two reasons,” she said. “When they trace me, I think I shall be glad. There is still something of the old Eve in me,” she smiled a little sadly, “to make exposure a painful possibility.”
One last question he asked as he stood at the door.
“What was in the box? The box that looked like a brick and was hidden in the fireplace?”
“Papers,” she replied. “I only know they were papers written in Chinese. I do not know what they were about yet.”
“Had they—could they possibly supply a clue to the murderer?”
She shook her head and he was satisfied.
He smiled at her and with no other word, went out. All doubts that he had had as to his feeling toward her were now set at rest. He loved this slim girl with the madonna-like face, whose moods changed as swiftly as April light. He did not think of Rex, or the heartache which her message would bring, until later.
There was no very satisfactory portrait of Wellington Brown in existence. On the ship which brought him from China, a fellow passenger had taken a snapshot of a group in which Mr. Brown’s face, slightly out of focus, loomed foggily. With this to work on, and with the assistance of Tab, something like a near-portrait was constructed and circulated by the police. Every newspaper carried the portrait, every amateur detective in the country was looking for the man with the beard, whose gloves had been found outside the death chamber of Jesse Trasmere.