He interrupted himself to address the widow. "This is an owner's badge. What was the name of his stable?"
"I don't know," she answered. She regarded the young man with sudden uneasiness. "They only owned one horse, but I believe that gave them the privilege of—"
"I see," exclaimed Ford. "Your husband is a bookmaker. But in London he is a promoter of companies."
"So my friend tells me," said Mrs. Ashton. "She's just got back from London. Her husband told her that Harry, my husband, was always at the American bar in the Cecil or at the Salisbury or the Savoy." The girl shook her head. "But a woman can't go looking for a man there," she protested. "That's, why I thought you—"
"That'll be all right," Ford assured her hurriedly. "It's a coincidence, but it happens that my own work takes me to these hotels, and if your husband is there I will find him." He returned the photographs.
"Hadn't you better keep one?" she asked.
"I won't forget him," said the reporter. "Besides"—he turned his eyes toward the doctor and, as though thinking aloud, said—"he may have grown a beard."
There was a pause.
The eyes of the woman grew troubled. Her lips pressed together as though in a sudden access of pain.
"And he may," Ford continued, "have changed his name."