"Inspector Lanton hinted something about it to me when at the inquest. It is to add to the attractions of the Turkish shop--to make it more mysterious, as it were."
"Ah!"--Miss Toat raised her pencilled eyebrows--"then the inspector did not tell you the exact truth. I expect Madame Coralie asked him to keep it quiet for obvious reasons."
"Obvious they may be," said Ralph, impatiently, "but I can't see them."
"Why, they are plain enough. The wearing of the yashmak is partly by way of a good advertisement, as it suggests mystery, and partly--this is the real reason, I expect--it is worn from necessity."
"From necessity?" Shawe stared hard at his visitor.
"Madame Coralie has a disfiguring birthmark on her right cheek, which, extending over mouth and chin, spoils her good looks. And she must have had some beauty when younger. Strange, is it not, Mr. Shawe, that she who can restore another woman's looks can do nothing with her own?"
"How do you know that she is marked in this way?"
"I saw it when she was asleep."
"But how did you enter her bedroom?" asked Ralph, much astonished.
The detective laughed. "When everyone was asleep I stole about the house investigating in list slippers and with a bull's-eye lantern. Madame Coralie lays aside her yashmak when in bed, so I easily saw that which she wishes to keep concealed."