It was the brunette who lay there before me, clad now as when last we met at the Ferris Wheel, in the garb of a man.
There he lay, slender and youthful of face and form, with the small, clean-cut features that had made it so easy to masquerade as a dashing brunette; the keen black eyes, seen through half-closed lids, were staring and inscrutable, and the black marks where something had been drawn so tightly about his neck as almost to cut into the flesh were horrible to see.
'I do not know his name,' I again assured the officer in charge. 'I have seen him several times disguised as a woman, and once only in the attire in which he now lies dead. I have taken note of him as a suspected person, and I have believed him to be a man since June 7,' and I related briefly my reasons for this belief. But I did not make known my belief in the dead man's connection with a gang of dangerous criminals. There was time enough for that. Nor did I give voice to the belief, swiftly taking shape in my mind, that he had met his death at the hands of his comrades, and because of the letter I had caused to appear in the morning papers two days before—the letter of 'E. Roe, On the Square.'
The body of course must go to the Morgue and the coroner, and I told the officer where I might be found or heard of, if wanted for the inquest, and then we withdrew.
'I was quite sure it was your brunette,' declared Dave, now grown communicative. 'Not by recognition; you know, I only saw "her" once and then at some distance, but thanks to the honest guards and ourselves—Murphy and I, that is—the body was not rifled, and I myself helped to search the pockets, at the sergeant's orders, and to examine the belt he wore. That gave me my clue; in it were half a dozen more of Lausch's dew-drop sparklers, unless I am much mistaken, and two more of the pink topaz lot. He seemed to vary in his way of carrying his treasures.'
'I think I can explain that,' I said. 'When he carried that chamois bag, while disguised as a woman, he meant, no doubt, before laying aside the disguise, to negotiate the sale of them, and so had them in readiness. He carried the emerald, you remember, and the other things he sold and tried to sell, in a little bag, so the tradesman said.'
'Well!' said Dave ruefully; 'one of the gang has slipped through our fingers in a way we did not look for. Have you a theory that will account for this, Carl?'
I turned upon him almost fiercely.
'I have, and so have you, Dave Brainerd. I don't for one moment doubt that my mistaken policy has brought this murder about, and you can see how it has complicated things. When I found through the brunette's note—I can't seem to find any other name for him—that in all probability we knew the men who had made away with Trent, I thought the game was almost in our hands, and now——' I dropped my head dejectedly.
'And now we're a good deal mixed,' supplemented Dave dryly. 'We're in a dilemma!'