“But, see here,” said Adam Bain, “I’m a lawyer. The law doesn’t deal with ghosts or near-ghosts. Are you trying to tell us, Professor Kent, that the soul of this long-dead Astræa-Camilla Grosvenor, came back to inhabit the body of the Jane Doe of Lonesome Cove?”
“Not precisely that, either. Everything is strictly within the limits of the law’s cognizance, Mr. Bain, as you will see. Now I’m going to make a long jump down to the present. If I fail to keep the trail clear, anywhere, you are any of you at liberty to interrupt me. First, then, I want you to follow with me the course of a figure that leaves Hedgerow House on the late afternoon of July fifth. By chance, the figure is not seen, except at a distance by Gansett Jim, who suspected nothing, then. Otherwise it would have been stopped, as it wears Mrs. Blair’s necklace and rings.”
“Dressing the part of Astræa,” guessed Lawyer Bain.
“Precisely. Our jeweled figure, in a dress that is an old one of Mrs. Blair’s, and with a package in hand, makes its way across country to the coast.”
“To join me,” said Preston Jax.
“To join you. Chance brings the wayfarer face to face with that gentleman of the peekaboo mind, Elder Dennett. They talk. The stranger asks—quite by chance, though the Elder assumed it was otherwise—about the home of Francis Sedgwick. At the entrance to Sedgwick’s place the pair met. There was a curious encounter, ending in Sedgwick’s demanding an explanation of the rose-topazes, which he knew to be Mrs. Blair’s.”
“How did he know that?” demanded Alexander Blair.
“Because I had worn them when I sat to him,” said Marjorie Blair quietly.
“You sat to Sedgwick? For your picture? Why didn’t you tell me of this?”
“No explanation was due you. It was a matter of chance, our acquaintance. Mr. Sedgwick did not even know who I was.”