“No, sir. I brought her up to the station, and took her name and all particulars. There’s the report.” He unfolded a paper and laid it on the Superintendent’s desk.
In the document was a detailed description of the lady, of the alleged despatch case and its contents, and of the means that had been taken to try to trace it. The pawnbrokers had been advised and a special watch kept on fences and other usual channels for the disposal of stolen goods.
When French had digested these particulars, he brought out once more his photographs and handed them to the Sergeant.
“Look at those, Sergeant, and tell me if you see the woman among them.”
Slowly the Sergeant turned them over, gazing at them in precisely the same puzzled way as had done Mr. Williams, Mr. Scarlett, and the other London men to whom they had been shown. And with the same doubt and hesitation he presently fixed on Mrs. Ward.
“That would be to be her,” he declared slowly, “that is, if she’s there at all. It isn’t a good likeness, but I believe it’s her all the same.”
“You wouldn’t swear to her?”
“I’d hardly. But I believe it’s her for all that.”
French nodded. The Sergeant’s statement, agreeing as it did with those of Messrs. Williams, Scarlett and Co., seemed capable of but one explanation. Mrs. X was Mrs. Ward all right, but before meeting these men she had made herself up to impersonate Mrs. Root. They saw a likeness to Mrs. Ward because it really was she, but they were doubtful because she was disguised.
The Inspector leaned forward and tapped the photograph.