"He could," she replied seriously, leaning out of the carriage window. "Aunt Lucy thinks no end of him, and would be glad to see me his wife."
"Don't you do anything in a hurry, Mabel,"--began Cannington, when his expostulations were cut short by the departure of the train. When the ruddy tail light of the guard's van disappeared, he took my arm with a friendly hug. "I didn't give you away, did I, Vance?"
"There's nothing to give away," I said gruffly.
"Oh! oh! oh!" said Cannington, in three distinct keys. "What about love at first sight, old man? You intend to follow up this case, so as to get into touch with the original of that photograph."
"Rubbish! You are jumping in the dark."
"Don't you jump," advised the boy shrewdly. "Your fancy has evidently been caught by Miss Monk's face, and if you meet her, there's no telling but that you may be a married man before Christmas."
I denied this hotly, and proceeded to show that my interest in the case was more or less official. "Mystery piques every man," said I insistently, "so I mean to learn why Mrs. Caldershaw was murdered, and why she attached such value to that glass eye of hers."
Cannington laughed and declined to believe, but being a thoroughly good fellow, ceased to chaff me when he saw that I looked annoyed. "All the same," he remarked, as we strolled back to his quarters, "I shall keep an eye on you, Vance. You're too inflammable, and I don't want you to marry in haste and repent at leisure."
Of course I laughed, uneasily maybe, for Cannington was right in the main. I certainly was anxious to solve the mystery, but I doubted if my zeal would have been equal to so arduous a task, had not the memory of that lovely face lured me onward, like a will-o'-the-wisp. I had long since wished to secure the photograph, so as to have the image of my divinity constantly before my eyes, but Dredge very reasonably declined to permit the illegal annexation. Mrs. Caldershaw's will, which had been found by the Inspector amongst her shop accounts, left all she died possessed of to her nephew, Joseph Striver. He proved on inquiry to be a Burwain gardener in the employment of Mr. Walter Monk. "If Striver will give, or sell you the portrait," said Dredge, with official phlegm, "I have no objection; it isn't my property."
The police-officer was much too grim and unromantic to guess why I sought to possess the photograph, and needless to say, I did not tell him. Also he was considerably annoyed by his failure to solve the mystery of Mrs. Caldershaw's murder, since its solution would have procured him both praise and promotion. So no one but Cannington guessed my silly infatuation, which assuredly was silly, for who but an idiot would fall in love with a pictured face on the instant. But there was no denying it, that I was in the toils of Venus, so, although angered by such unaccountable weakness, I was bent upon meeting the original. Then,--ah, well, the future is on the knees of the gods.