"I'll have to speak to Mrs. Vick," murmured the woman. "I don't know as she would want Rosabel's picture printed in the papers."
"It would be of incalculable assistance, Madam, in case she has run away from home. We have an idea that she may have planted those garments in the boat in order to throw people off the track."
"Oh, she—she wouldn't have done that," cried the woman. "She couldn't be so heartless."
"You overlook the possibility that her mind may be affected. Dementia frequently takes the form of—er—you might say unnatural cunning."
"I'll speak to Mrs. Vick. There's a scrap-book of Kodak pictures there on the table. I was looking through it today. She and her brother, Cale, made heaps of pictures. You might be looking through it while I go upstairs."
Thane was lighting a cigarette.
"Have you told Miss Crown that I am here?" asked he, as she started toward the stairs.
"She says she'll be down in a few minutes. Mrs. Vick wants to see you before you go."
The two reporters were examining the contents of the scrap-book. The younger of the two was standing at the end of the little marble-topped table, his body screening the book from Courtney's view.
There were a number of loose prints lying between the leaves toward the end of the book. Rosabel had neglected to paste them in. The man with the horn-rimmed spectacles ran through them hastily. He stealthily slipped two of these prints up his sleeve.