Ten days later there was arrested in Paris, at the office of the American Express Company, a man answering the description of Whispering Willie, who had presented some checks signed by W. W. Lowry. The Paris police reported that W. W. Lowry was probably one of a band, because the scar on his hand vanished when washed with alcohol. And his voice grew normal when questioned by the prefect of police. He told an absurd story of having been hired at the rate of one thousand dollars a week to ask in a whisper for eleven letters at the American Express Company's office on February 11th, at 11.11 a.m., and declared that when his employer bade him good-by on the steamer he painted a scar on the back of his hand and told him always to wear black gloves. The employer answered the description of Whispering Willie and also of W. W. Lovell. The police found that the whisperer's trail led a second time to the _Herald_ office. The clerk, Carroll, remembered the mysterious advertiser very well indeed. Messrs. Reese & Silliman, real-estate agents, told the police they had rented Colonel Walton's house for the winter to a Mr. J. C. Atkinson, an Englishman who had given as references a firm of international bankers on whom his letter of credit for five thousand pounds was drawn. The bankers knew nothing about him personally or socially. Mr. Atkinson had drawn the entire five thousand pounds. He had occupied the house two months, paid his rent promptly, and had given a satisfactory deposit against possible damage happening to any of the furniture.
The police had lost four weeks of valuable time in following clues that merely led back to the St. Iago Building and to the man with the paralyzed vocal cords and the scar on the back of his hand, calling himself W. W. Lovell, who was probably William W. Long, alias William W. Longworth, alias W. W. Latshay, alias Whispering Willie. The Englishman was not known to any member of the New York police force, but fortunately he had a nervous affliction which would betray him without recourse to the third degree.
Exactly one month after the departure of the real Duke of Connaught from New York Messrs. Jesse L. Boon, Percival Pierce, J. Sumner Storrs, and Wilfred Gaylord each received a copy of the following letter, typewritten on note-paper of the Ritz-Carlton: