: when he had gathered himself
together his perplexity was overdone.

"With me!" he repeated. "I was alone, of course."

"I mean--the woman at the gate."

He lost his composure altogether then. I put my back against the door
and waited for him to get himself in hand.

"There was a woman," I persisted, "and what is more, Wardrop, at this
minute you believe she took your Russia leather bag and left a
substitute."

He fell into the trap.

"But she couldn't," he quavered. "I've thought until my brain is going,
and I don't see how she could have done it."

He became sullen when he saw what he had done, refused any more
information, and left almost immediately.

Fred came soon after, and in the meantime I had made some notes like
this:

1. Examine warehouse and yard.

2. Attempt to trace Carter.

3. See station agent at Bellwood.

4. Inquire Wardrop's immediate past.

5. Take Wardrop to Doctor Anderson, the specialist.

6. Send Margery violets.

CHAPTER XVI

ELEVEN TWENTY-TWO AGAIN

Burton's idea of exploiting Miss Jane's disappearance began to bear
fruit the next morning. I went to the office early, anxious to get my
more pressing business out of the way, to have the afternoon with Burton
to inspect the warehouse. At nine o'clock came a call from the morgue.

"Small woman, well dressed, gray hair?" I repeated. "I think I'll go up
and see. Where was the body found?"

"In the river at Monica Station," was the reply. "There is a scar
diagonally across the cheek to the corner of the mouth."

"A fresh injury?"

"No, an old scar."

With a breath of relief I said it was not the person we were seeking and
tried to get down to work again. But Burton's prophecy had been right.
Miss Jane had been seen in a hundred different places: one perhaps was
right; which one?

A reporter for the _Eagle_ had been working on the case all night: he
came in for a more detailed description of the missing woman, and he had
a theory, to fit which he was quite ready to cut and trim the facts.

"It's Rowe," he said confidently. "You can see his hand in it right
through. I was put on the Benson kidnapping case, you remember, the boy
who was kept for three months in a deserted lumber camp in the
mountains? Well, sir, every person in the Benson house swore that
youngster was in bed at midnight, when the house was closed for the
night. Every door and window bolted in the morning, and the boy gone.
When we found Rowe--