"Then I will not detain you longer." He bowed. "I cannot accost a stranger, claiming her as the girl you seek, unless I can be absolutely certain of my ground, no matter how conclusive my suspicions are."
"You mean that you have found some one who answers the description, only that she has a scar?" Madame Dumois spoke with rigid control. "Take me where I can see her, and I will soon tell you whether your suspicions are correct or not."
"Unfortunately, that would be impossible." Mr. Ross shook his head gravely. "If I should prove to have been mistaken, explanations might involve you in the very notoriety you are seeking to avoid. But if you can obtain a likeness of her the question will be settled once and for all."
He paused and there was a brief silence while the old lady seemed to hesitate. At length she said grudgingly:
"I will try to get one. In the meantime, Mr. Ross, do not lose sight of the person you suspect."
He reassured her on that score and departed. He was confident that his client would produce the photograph at his next interview with her, but a grave doubt filled his mind that the girl who had come to him that afternoon was the one sought. The old lady's astonishment at the suggestion of a scar or birthmark had been unfeigned, and that single incontrovertible fact would overthrow the whole structure of his theory. The case which he had assumed practically blindfold seemed no nearer a solution and no other translator had risen to the bait offered by the advertisement who could by any possibility have been associated with his subject.
Meanwhile, Betty had concluded a satisfactory arrangement with her former landlady and was hastening homeward. A confused babel of voices arose as she crossed the avenue, and amid the raucous shouts one phrase beat upon her brain:
"Wuxtry! Wuxtry! Latest news about the big murder! Coroner's inquest adjourned. Wuxtry!"
She purchased a paper from the first newsboy who accosted her, and stopped in the rosy reflected glow from a drugstore window to scan the headlines. The light shining through a crimson globe dyed the page a sinister hue and from it there stared out at her the face of a man in the prime of life, with a square, determined chin and fine eyes, albeit there clustered about them the unmistakable lines of world knowledge and satiety.
Beneath it in double type she read: