“What did you find?”
“Only what I have stated. There was nothing to show where Nancy Nordeck has gone, nor any trace of the stolen money. She bolted with that, all right, or as much of it as Nordeck derived from the job. Mallory took charge of the body and will have it decently buried.”
“If we are to judge from the sentiment expressed in her letter to Mallory, the better part of the girl must have been deeply stirred by the death of her father,” Nick observed. “She wanted him to have a cloth-covered casket with silver grips, you remember, also a prayer said for him.[Pg 25]”
“She is not entirely bad, then, after all.”
“His death may have hit her hard, Chick, and possibly will reform her. Let’s hope so for her own sake. Where did you get this cast?”
“From one of the footprints in the back yard,” said Chick. “I thought it might be needed later, perhaps, and so I sent Danny after some plaster and made a cast of the footprint. It was Nancy Nordeck’s, all right, for no other woman has recently been in the yard. She was——”
“Stop a moment,” Nick interrupted. “By Jove, Chick, you are right. Circumstances do dovetail strangely sometimes.”
“You mean——”
“This is a facsimile of one of the imprints I found under Maybrick’s library window.”
“Are you sure?”