"Nothing to help us to-day. No letters--no cards. Some clothing--some little trifles (bought in Paris, by the way) and one little book."
"Yes--_Angeline_; and one line of writing from some poem, I judge. I put it back where I found it. When we know more, it may help us to find her friends."
"Almost, but not quite. The young girl had a bag too. It stood on a table----"
"Empty. Everything had been tumbled out--turned upside down and the contents scattered. I looked them carefully over. Nothing, positively nothing, but what you would be likely to find in any young girl's traveling-bag. There's but one conclusion to be drawn."
"That all these things, such as they were, had been pushed hastily about after being emptied out on the table. That was not the young girl's work."
"You've hit it. She was in search of some one thing she wanted, and she took the quickest way of finding it. And----"
"She was in a desperate hurry, or she wouldn't have left the trunk open or all those dainty things lying about. Frenchwomen are methodical and very careful of their belongings. One other thing I noted. There was a loose nail in the lock of the trunk. Sticking to this nail was a raveling of brown wool. Here it is, sir. The woman--Madame Duclos--wore a dress of brown serge. If my calculations are not wrong and we succeed in getting a glimpse of that dress, we shall find a tear in the skirt--and what is more, one very near the hem."
"Yes--another token of haste. She probably jerked at the skirt when she found herself caught. She could not have been herself to have done this--for which we may be glad."
"You mean that by this thoughtless action she has left a clue in our hands?"
"That and something more. That tear in her decent skirt will bother her. She will either make an immediate attempt to mend it, or else do the other obvious thing--buy a new one. In either case it gives us something by which to trace her. I have put Sweetwater on that job. He never tires, never wearies, never lets go. No report in yet from the terminals?"
"Not a word. But she will not get far. Sooner or later we shall find her if she does not come forward herself after reading the evening papers."
"I am not so sure. Something not a little peculiar happened at the museum after you left. We had Reynolds up, and he made a most careful examination of that bow for finger-prints. He did not find any. But fortune favored us in another way almost as good."
