t a corner--he did
not know the names of the streets--a woman hailed the cab and asked him
if he belonged in Bellwood or was going to the city. She had missed the
last train. When he told her he was going into town, she promptly
engaged him, and showed him where to wait for her, a narrow road off the
main street.

"I waited an hour," he finished, "before she came; I dropped to sleep or
I would have gone without her. About half-past one she came along, and a
gentleman with her. He put her in the cab, and I took her to the city.
When I saw in the paper that a lady had disappeared from Bellwood that
night, I knew right off that it was my party."

"Would you know the man again?"

"I would know his voice, I expect, sir; I could not see much: he wore a
slouch hat and had a traveling-bag of some kind."

"What did he say to the woman?" I asked.

"He didn't say much. Before he closed the door, he said, 'You have put
me in a terrible position,' or something like that. From the
traveling-bag and all, I thought perhaps it was an elopement, and the
lady had decided to throw him down."

"Was it a young woman or an old one," I asked again. This time the
cabby's tone was assured.

"Young," he asserted, "slim and quick: dressed in black, with a black
veil. Soft voice. She got out at Market Square, and I have an idea she
took a cross-town car there."

"I hardly think it was Miss Maitland," I said. "She was past sixty, and
besides--I don't think she went that way. Still it is worth following
up. Is that all?"

He fumbled in his pocket, and after a minute brought up a small black
pocket-book and held it out to me. It was the small coin purse out of a
leather hand-bag.

"She dropped this in the cab, sir," he said. "I took it home to the
missus--not knowing what else to do with it. It had no money in it--only
that bit of paper."

I opened the purse and took out a small white card, without engraving.
On it was written in a pencil the figures:

C 1122

CHAPTER XVII

HIS SECOND WIFE

When the cabman had gone, I sat down and tried to think things out. As I
have said many times in the course of this narrative, I lack
imagination: moreover, a long experience of witnesses in court had
taught me the unreliability of average observation. The very fact that
two men swore to having taken solitary women away from Bellwood that
night, made me doubt if either one had really seen the missing woman.

Of the two stories, the ta