"Have you seen the driver of the closed carriage?"
"No. We have no means of identifying him except recognition by the man who drove the coupé. If a man should walk in here and say that he drove the closed carriage, we'd examine him, of course, but we've been unable yet to find that man. The thing being in the papers, it may happen—in fact, it's quite likely—that the missing driver will turn up to-day. Cabmen are usually anxious to please the department. I suppose the evidence of the cabman would be satisfactory, wouldn't it?"
"Quite, if I was satisfied that it was the man, and that he told the truth."
"I guess you're hard to satisfy, Miss Hilman."
"Mr. Bowker," and Clara beamed on him with a smile so sweet and radiant that he started with astonishment, "I think you are working hard and as faithfully as you know how to prove a theory which you formed early in your investigations, even before you had Lizzie White's flight to base it on. I shouldn't think you'd do that, you know. Honestly, wouldn't you rather find out the truth, even if it did upset your first theory?"
Bowker stared in undisguised discomfort.
"If you've got any facts," he said, "you'd ought to let us have them. Of course we want to find out the truth. What is it you know, or think of?"
"No, thank you, Mr. Bowker," responded Clara, rising, and still bewildering him with her lovely smiles; "you work along in your way and I'll work in mine. When I learn that you've found anything worth considering, I may take you into my confidence; I might even co-operate with you. Good-afternoon."
No one was more amazed at Clara's coolness than her Cousin Louise.
"I don't see how you can do it, Clara," she said when they were again in Pemberton Square.