“Now, then,” he said, when the boy had taken the lead-pencil and was testing its usefulness on the detective’s cuff, “now then, I’ll bet you don’t know what your name is!”
“I do,” said the boy. “Lucien Wallace.”
“Great! And what’s your mother’s name?”
“Mother, of course. What’s your mother’s name?” And he pointed to me! I am going to stop wearing black: it doubles a woman’s age.
“And where did you live before you came here?” The detective was polite enough not to smile.
“Grossmutter,” he said. And I saw Mr. Jamieson’s eyebrows go up.
“German,” he commented. “Well, young man, you don’t seem to know much about yourself.”
“I’ve tried it all week,” Mrs. Tate broke in. “The boy knows a word or two of German, but he doesn’t know where he lived, or anything about himself.”
Mr. Jamieson wrote something on a card and gave it to her.
“Mrs. Tate,” he said, “I want you to do something. Here is some money for the telephone call. The instant the boy’s mother appears here, call up that number and ask for the person whose name is there. You can run across to the drug-store on an errand and do it quietly. Just say, ‘The lady has come.’”