“Mostly. They are wanted for all kinds of crime, from fraud to murder,” he replied.
They were indeed a most incongruous set. Many were photographs taken by the French and German and Italian police after the criminal’s previous conviction, and the suspects were often in prison dress; but the portraits of others were in cabinet size, bearing the names of well-known Paris, Berlin, and Viennese photographers.
“Have any of these people been arrested?” I inquired.
“No. When they are, we take out the picture and file it. If there is any reason why they should not be arrested it is written below.”
And he went on with his careful but rapid search while carelessly I turned over leaf after leaf. A few of the men appeared quite refined and gentlemanly. Some of the women were quiet and inoffensive-looking, and one or two of them stylishly dressed and exceedingly pretty, but it could be distinguished that the majority bore the stamp of crime on their brutal, debased faces.
I had glanced at a number of leaves mechanically, and had grown tired of inspecting the motley crowd of evildoers, when suddenly an involuntary cry of abject amazement escaped my lips.
My eyes had fallen upon two portraits placed side by side among a number of others whose physiognomy clearly betrayed the fact that they were malefactors. Stupefied by the discovery I stood aghast, staring at them, scarcely believing my own eyes.
The two portraits were those of Sybil and myself!
Sybil’s picture was similar to the one I had purchased in Regent Street, and was by the same photographer, while mine had evidently been copied from one that had been taken in Paris two years before.
Of what crime had we been suspected? Here was yet another phase of the inexplicable mystery of Sybil’s marriage and death. Some words were written beneath her portrait in red ink and initialled. I bent to examine them and found they read—“Warrant not executed—Death.”