The first step was taken by Geoffrey, who, through Beryl, discovered the whereabouts of “Daddy” Whittaker. Next day he met him by appointment in the Park, and as they were walking together, Sylvia, who was dressed as a tourist, took a secret snapshot of them as they passed.
This photograph was quickly developed, and that same night Falconer left with it for Marseilles.
Two days later he showed it to the employé at Cook’s baggage depôt, who at once, and without hesitation, declared the elder man to be the person who claimed the trunk addressed to Mr. Halliday. The trunk had been signed for and taken away on a taxi-cab. The signature in the book was that of “J. Halliday.” But it certainly was not Jack’s!
Geoffrey took the rapide back to Paris that night, sorely puzzled. What had become of his old chum? Marconigrams were sent broadcast in search of him. The passenger lists of six ships sailing from Marseilles to Cuba were examined, but in no case was there any trace of any such person in the lists.
Early in the morning, as the express halting at Laroche awakened him, it suddenly crossed his mind that Jack’s identity was being obliterated by some clever combination of the crooks. In Paris he would go to the Bureau of the Sûreté and make inquiries.
At noon he was in the dull, drab office of the famous French detective, Gaston Meunier, to whom he told the story, and asked whether he thought his friend had met with foul play.
The little bald-headed official raised his shoulders and replied that, in view of the fact that the trunk had been sent to Marseilles, it was quite possible that Monsieur Halliday had returned from Egypt to France.
Then they went into dates. Afterwards the great detective rose, and left him. Ten minutes later he reappeared, having a number of police photographs of persons who had been found dead, suicides, and those wilfully murdered, whom the police both in Paris and in the Departments had failed to identify.
The period covered was six months.
With great eagerness Geoffrey Falconer examined one after another—many of them pictures of recovered bodies, a terrible, gruesome collection—when at last he came across the picture of a man lying face upward on the grass.