Hawley made no response, evidently finding a seat on one end of the washstand.
“Hardly worth while, Scott,” he returned finally. “Perhaps I better have some understanding with Christie, anyhow, before I pump the boy any further. If we can once get her working with us, Willoughby won't have much hand in the play—we shan't need him. Thought I told you to keep sober?”
“Am sober,” solemnly, “ain't had but six drinks; just nat'rly tired out.”
“Oh, indeed; well, such a room as this would drive any man to drink. Did you get what I sent you here after?”
“I sure did, Bart,” and Keith heard the fellow get to his feet unsteadily. “Here's the picture, an' some letters. I didn't take only what he had in the grip.”
Hawley shuffled the letters over in his hands, apparently hastily reading them with some difficulty in the dim light.
“Nothing there to give us any help,” he acknowledged reluctantly, “mostly advice as far as I can see. Damn the light; a glow worm would be better.” There was a pause; then he slapped his leg. “However, it's clear they live in Springfield, Missouri, and this photograph is a peach. Just look here, Bill! What did I tell you? Ain't Christie a dead ringer for this girl?”
“You bet she is, Bart,” admitted the other in maudlin admiration, “only, I reckon, maybe some older.”
“Well, she ought to be accordin' to Willoughby's story, an' them papers bear him out all right, so I reckon he's told it straight—this Phyllis would be twenty-six now, and that's just about what Christie is. It wouldn't have fit better if we had made it on purpose. If the girl will only play up to the part we won't need any other evidence—her face would be enough.”
Keith could hear the beating of his own heart in the silence that followed. Here was a new thought, a new understanding, a complete new turn to affairs. Christie Maclaire, then, was not Willoughby's sister Hope. The girl he rescued on the desert—the girl with the pleading brown eyes, and the soft blur of the South on her lips—was not the music hall singer. He could hardly grasp the truth at first, it antagonized so sharply with all he had previously believed. Yet, if this were true his own duty became clearer than ever; aye, and would be more willingly performed. But what did Hawley know? Did he already realize that the girl he had first met on the stage coach, and later inveigled into the desert, was Hope, and not the music hall artist? He, of course, fully believed her to be Christie Maclaire at that time, but something might have occurred since to change that belief. Anyhow, the man was not now seeking Hope, but the other. Apparently the latter was either already here in Sheridan or expected soon. And exactly what was it the gambler desired this Maclaire woman to do? This was the important matter, and for its solution Keith possessed merely a few hints, a few vague suggestions. She was expected to represent herself as Phyllis—Phyllis who? Some Phyllis surely whose physical resemblance to Hope must be sufficiently marked to be at once noticeable. Willoughby had evidently revealed to Hawley some hidden family secret, having money involved, no doubt, and in which the discovery of this mysterious Phyllis figured. She might, perhaps, be a sister, or half-sister, who had disappeared, and remained ignorant as to any inheritance. Hope's picture shown by the boy, and reminding Hawley at once of Christie Maclaire, had been the basis of the whole plot. Exactly what the details of that plot might be Keith could not figure out, but one thing was reasonably certain—it was proposed to defraud Hope. And who in the very truth was Hope? It suddenly occurred to him as a remarkably strange fact that he possessed not the slightest inkling as to the girl's name. Her brother had assumed to be called Willoughby when he enlisted in the army, and his companions continued to call him this. If he could interview the girl now for only five minutes he should be able probably to straighten out the whole intricate tangle. But where was she? Would she have remained until this time at Fort Larned with Kate Murphy?