show you this photograph which I found in his desk."

I handed the card to Mr. Crawford, whose features broke into a smile as
he looked at it.

"Oh, that," he said; "that is a picture, of Mrs. Patton." He looked at
the picture with a glance that seemed to be of admiring reminiscence,
and he studied the gentle face of the photograph a moment without
speaking.

Then he said, "She was beautiful as a girl. She used to be a school
friend of both Joseph and myself."

"She wrote rather an affectionate message on the back," I observed.

Mr. Crawford turned the picture over.

"Oh, she didn't send this picture to Joseph. She sent it to my wife last
Christmas. I took it over to show it to Joseph some months ago, and left
it there without thinking much about it. He probably laid it in his desk
without thinking much about it, either. No, no, Burroughs, there is
no romance there, and you can't connect Mrs. Patton with any of your
detective investigations."

"I rather thought that, Mr. Crawford; for this is evidently a sweet,
simple-minded lady, and more over nothing has turned up to indicate that
Mr. Crawford had a romantic interest of any kind."

"No, he didn't. I knew Joseph as I know myself. No; whoever killed my
brother, was a man; some villain who had a motive that I know nothing
about."

"But you were intimately acquainted with your brother's affairs?"

"Yes, that is what proves to me that whoever this assassin was, it was
some one of whose motive I know nothing. The fact that my brother was
murdered, proves to me that my brother had an enemy, but I had never
suspected it before."

"Do you know a Mrs. Egerton Purvis?"

I flung the question at him, suddenly, hoping to catch him unawares. But
he only looked at me with the blank expression of one who hears a name
for the first time.

"No," he answered, "I never heard of her. Who is she?"

"Well, when I was hunting through that gold-mesh bag, I discovered a
lady's visiting card with that name on it. It had slipped between the
linings, and so had not been noticed before."

To my surprise, this piece of information seemed to annoy Mr. Crawford
greatly.

"No!" he exclaimed. "In the bag? Then some one has put it there! for I
looked over all the bag's contents myself."

"It was between the pocket and the lining," said I; "it is there still,
for as I felt sure no one else would discover it, I left it there. Mr.
Goodrich has the bag."

"Oh, I don't want to see it,