They left him, groaning at his door, and went to look up Dimmock, the rummage man. But he was wholly unable to throw any light on the former owner of the reports, in which the drawing had been tucked away. There the investigation seemed to be up against a blank wall.
“Isn’t it astounding!” said Sedgwick. “Here’s a portrait antedating 1830, of a woman who has just died, young. What was the woman I saw; a revenant in the flesh?”
“If you ask me,” said Kent slowly, “I should say, rather, an imitation.”
Further he would not say, but insisted on returning to the Nook. As they arrived, the telephone bell was ringing with the weary persistence of the long-unanswered. To Kent’s query, Lawyer Bain’s voice announced:
“I’ve been trying to get you for an hour.”
“Sorry,” said Kent. “Is it about the newspapers?”
“Yes,” said the lawyer. “I’ve got the information.” And he stated that four newspapers went regularly to Hedgerow House,—The New York Star and Messenger and The Boston Eagle to Alexander Blair, and The Boston Free Press to Wilfrid Blair.
Over this information Kent whistled in such melancholy tones that his host was moved to protest.
“You’re on the track of something, and you’re keeping it dark from me!”
“I’m not traveling the most brilliantly illuminated paths myself, my young friend,” replied Kent, and lapsed into silence.