"Where's the other mitten?" he inquired.
"There 'ain't been but the one," the attendant told him.
"Are you sure?"
"See here, do you think I'm trying to hold out a yarn mitten on you? I say there 'ain't been but the one. I was here when she came, and I know."
Discouraged by the paucity of clues which this place offered, Anderson went next to the coroner's office.
The City Hall newspaper squad had desks in this place, but Paul paid no attention to them or to their occupants. He went straight to the wicket and asked for the effects of the dead girl.
It appeared that Burns had told his practical joke broadcast, for the young man heard his name mentioned, and then some one behind him snickered. He paid no attention, however, for the clerk had handed him a small leather bag or purse, together with a morphine-bottle, about the size and shape of an ordinary vaseline-bottle. The bag was cheap and bore no maker's name or mark. Inside of it was a brooch, a ring, a silver chain, and a slip of paper. Stuck to the bottom of the reticule was a small key. Paul came near overlooking the last-named article, for it was well hidden in a fold near the corner. Now a key to an unknown lock is not much to go on at best, therefore he gave his attention to the paper. It was evidently a scrap torn from a sheet of wrapping-paper, and bore these figures in pencil:
9.25 6.25 —— 3.00
While he was reading these figures Paul heard a reporter say, loudly,
"Now that I have written the paper, who will take it?"
Another answered, "I will."