"No," she answered, finally.
Hatch studied her face a moment with cold eyes, then turned the scrap of paper over. The other side was blank. Staring down at it he veiled a glitter of anxious interest.
"And the picture?" he asked, quietly.
The girl handed him the photograph. Hatch took it and as he looked it was with difficulty he restrained an exclamation of astonishment--triumphant astonishment. Finally, with his brain teeming with possibilities, he left the house, taking the photograph and the scrap of paper. Ten minutes later he was talking to his City Editor over the 'phone.
"It's a great story," he explained, briefly. "The missing girl is the mysterious model of St. George's picture, 'Fulfillment.'"
"Great," came the voice of the City Editor.
II.
Having laid his story before his City Editor, Hatch sat down to consider the fragmentary writing. Obviously "sday" represented a day of the week--either Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, these being the only days where the letter "s" preceded the "day." This seemed to be a definite fact, but still it meant nothing. True, Miss Field had last been seen on Wednesday, but then?--nothing.
To the next part of the fragment Hatch attached the greatest importance. It was the possibility of a threat,----"ill you." Did it mean "kill you" or "will you" or "till you" or--or what? There might be dozens of other words ending in "ill" which he did not recall at the moment. His imagination hammered the phrase into his brain as "kill you." The "to the"--the next words--were clear, but meant nothing at all. The last letters were distinctly "ho," possibly "hope."
Then Hatch began real work on the story. First he saw the bank clerk, Victor Willis, who Miss Stanford had said loved Grace Field, and whom Hatch suspected Miss Stanford loved. He found Willis a grim, sullen-faced young man of twenty-eight years, who would say nothing.