“Oh, but it is not that man,” I interposed, with a sudden sense of hopeless bewilderment. For I had forgotten this absolute discrepancy when I was talking to Thorndyke about the identification.
“Not that man!” she repeated, gazing at me in wild astonishment. “But that man was my father’s murderer. I feel certain of it.”
“So do I,” was my rather lame rejoinder.
“Besides,” she persisted; “if he was not the murderer, who was he, and why should he want to kill me?”
“Exactly,” I agreed, “it seems conclusive. But apparently it isn’t. At any rate, the man they are going to arrest is the man whose mask Thorndyke found at the studio.”
“Then they are going to arrest the wrong man,” said she, looking at me with a deeply troubled face. I was uncomfortable, too, for I saw what was in her mind. The memory of the ruffian who had made that murderous attack on her still lingered in her mind as a thing of horror. The thought that he was still at large and might at any moment reappear, made it impossible for her ever to work alone in the studio, or even to walk abroad without protection. She had looked, as I had, to the discovery of the murderer to rid her of this abiding menace. But now it seemed that even alter the arrest of the murderer, this terrible menace would remain.
“I can’t understand it,” she said dejectedly. “When you showed me that photograph of the man who tried to kill me, I naturally hoped that Dr. Thorndyke had discovered who he was. But now it appears that he is at large and still untraced, yet I am convinced that he is the man who ought to have been followed.”
“Never mind, my dear,” I said cheerfully. “Let us see the affair out. You don’t understand it and neither do I. But Thorndyke does. I have absolute faith in him, and so, I can see, have the police.”
She assented without much conviction, and then Miss Boler began to press for further particulars. I mentioned the probable time of the arrest and the part that I was required to play in identifying the accused.
“You don’t mean that you are asked to be present when the actual arrest is made, do you?” Marion asked anxiously.