"And when did she join the Army?"

"The very day after the murder."

"Rather sudden conversion?"

"Yes, but she said the death of the woman on Thursday night had so startled her, that she went straight off to the Army to get her religion properly fixed up."

"The effects of fright, no doubt," said Calton, dryly. "I've met a good many examples of these sudden conversions, but they never last long as a rule—it's a case of 'the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be,' more than anything else. Good-looking?"

"So-so, I believe," replied Kilsip, shrugging his shoulders.

"Very ignorant—could neither read nor write."

"That accounts for her not asking for Fitzgerald when she called at the Club—she probably did not know whom she had been sent for. It will resolve itself into a question of identification, I expect. However, if the police can't find her, we will put an advertisement in the papers offering a reward, and send out handbills to the same effect. She must be found. Brian Fitzgerald's life hangs on a thread, and that thread is Sal Rawlins."

"Yes!" assented Kilsip, rubbing his hands together. "Even if Mr. Fitzgerald acknowledges that he was at Mother Guttersnipe's on the night in question, she will have to prove that he was there, as no one else saw him."

"Are you sure of that?"