She handed him a packet of letters and he went through them with the swiftness of one accustomed to handle papers. They seemed to consist mostly of old invitations. Why Mrs. Draycott should have kept them, it was difficult to imagine. Probably she had been too lazy to sort them out and had thrown them carelessly into the box with other papers, but they were useful inasmuch as they gave some clue as to the people she was in the habit of visiting. One or two of the signatures Fayre recognized as being well known in the City. He made a note of some of them in his pocketbook, meaning to ask Grey for information about them. As Miss Allen emptied the box his list grew longer, but even the few private letters which he read carefully from beginning to end, in the hope of finding at least some allusion to Mrs. Draycott’s private affairs, failed to produce any enlightening information. There were several packets of photographs, some of which were signed and many of which bore inscriptions, but they conveyed nothing either to Fayre or Miss Allen.
“That’s the lot,” she said at last, beginning to stack the pile of papers back in the box. “I’m afraid it hasn’t been much help.”
Fayre rose to help her.
“It’s given me a list of names that may prove useful and at least we know now what sort of set she was moving in. Any one of these people may be able to give us information as to some one who had reason to bear her a grudge.”
He picked up an envelope which was lying at the top of a bundle of receipts and opened it idly. A snapshot fell out and dropped, face upwards, onto the table.
Fayre bent over it and, as he did so, the colour ebbed slowly from his face, leaving even his lips white.
He snatched the photograph up and walked quickly over to the electric-lamp that stood on the writing table. Holding the snapshot just under the light, he studied it carefully.
Miss Allen, who was absorbed in fitting the papers back into the box, had not noticed his emotion. Now she suddenly became aware that he had found something that interested him.
“What have you got there?” she asked. Then, seeing the envelope on the table: “Is it that snapshot? It puzzled me, too. The odd thing is that it seems to have come from Germany, according to the inscription on the back.”
Fayre turned it over. Stamped across the back were the words: “Staatsnarrenhaus, Schleefeldt.”