"You are sure?" Monsieur Simon was now as eager as she.
"Absolutely. I am a leisurely person. I have done all the cleaning in this studio myself. I am careful in small matters. It would have been impossible for me to have fastened these buttons as you see them."
"Sapristi! Madame—And you think——?"
He paused as Moira unbuttoned the old skirt and slipped it down while she moved eagerly around the partially disrobed figure.
"Monsieur!" she gasped in sudden excitement as she pointed to the cotton covering of the mannikin. He looked where she pointed and saw a stain of dirt and dust which extended the full length of the thigh.
"What does it mean?" he asked.
"The lay figure has been moved from its iron bracket——"
"And even so, what——?"
But she had fallen on her knees before it and didn't even hear him, for she suddenly bent forward with a little cry and put her finger into a small tear in the cotton cloth on the outside of the right calf.
"I have it," she muttered excitedly, as though half to herself. "I have it—new—clean on one side, soiled on the other——"