re me. "Yellow
hair or black, this is the girl I saw him speaking to that day in
Broome Street. I remember her clothes if nothing more." And opening my
pocketbook, I took out the morsel of cloth I had plucked that day from
the ash barrel, lifted up the discolored rags that hung about the body
and compared the two. The pattern, texture and color were the same.

"Well," said Mr. Gryce, pointing to certain contusions, like marks from
the blow of some heavy instrument on the head and bared arms of the girl
before us; "he will have to answer me one question anyhow, and that
is, who this poor creature is who lies here the victim of treachery or
despair." And turning to the official he asked if there were any other
signs of violence on the body.

The answer came deliberately, "Yes, she has evidently been battered to
death."

Mr. Gryce's lips closed with grim decision. "A most brutal murder," said
he and lifting up the cloth with a hand that visibly trembled, he softly
covered her face.

"Well," said I as we slowly paced back up the pier, "there is one thing
certain, she is not the one who disappeared from Mr. Blake's house."

"I am not so sure of that."

"How!" said I. "You believed Fanny lied when she gave that description
of the missing girl upon which we have gone till now?"

Mr. Gryce smiled, and turning back, beckoned to the official behind us.
"Let me have that description," said he, "which I distributed among the
Harbor Police some days ago for the identification of a certain corpse I
was on the lookout for."

The man opened his coat and drew out a printed paper which at Mr.
Gryce's word he put into my hand. It ran as follows:

Look out for the body of a young girl, tall, well shaped but thin,
of fair complexion and golden hair of a peculiar bright and
beautiful color, and when found, acquaint me at once.
G.

"I don't understand," began I.

But Mr. Gryce tapping me on the arm said in his most deliberate tones,
"Next time you examine a room in which anything of a mysterious nature
has occurred, look under the bureau and if you find a comb there with
several long golden hairs tangled in it, be very sure before you draw
any definite conclusions, that your Fannys know what they are talking
about when they declare the girl who used that comb had black hair on
her head."

CHAPTER X. THE SECRET OF MR. BLAKE'S STUDIO

"Mr. Blake is at