of this sort take time, Mrs. Morton. Remember that I have had charge of the case but three days, and these people we are looking for are shrewd, leaving few clues. But I feel that I shall have something definite to report very soon now."
"I hope so, I'm sure. Good day."
"Good day." Duvall left the room, and taking a taxi, drove down to see Grace.
He found her sitting at the writing desk, in the reception room of their suite, apparently busy over a letter. She pushed the sheet of paper aside, when her husband entered, and threw her arms about his neck.
"Richard!" she exclaimed, "I'm so glad to see you. It has been ages. What's the matter with you? You look dreadfully blue."
Duvall threw himself into a chair.
"I'm a bit disgusted with myself," he said.
"What about? I may ask you now, may I not? Is it about that wretched Morton case? I must talk to you about that. May I? You see, you rather got me into it, last night, and I got myself into it, too, by coming up to your hotel to see you, and now you've got to tell me how things turned out, after you left the theater, or I shall not know just what to do."
"About what?"
"I'll tell you that, after I hear about last night."
Duvall laughed, although a trifle grimly.
"I'm not particularly proud of last night," he said.
"Wasn't the woman who fainted the one you were after?" asked Grace.
"Yes. I'm sure she was. But unfortunately, she got away from me." He outlined to Grace the circumstances which led up to the woman's escape from the cab.
"You say she was a small, slight woman, with light hair?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Then I may know something about her."
"What?"
"I'll tell you. You remember that, when I came up to see you at the hotel yesterday afternoon, you were greatly put out, because you were afraid that I might have been followed, thus disclosing the name of your hotel to these people you are trying to avoid?"
"Yes. I was afraid of it. And the people in question did find out in some way where I had taken Miss Morton and her mother, as I discovered last night."
"They did not discover it through me."
"How do you know?"
"It came about in a curious way. After you told me, over the telephone, that you feared I might have been followed, I looked up the taxi driver who took me uptown, and asked him if anyone had tried to question him. I thought that possibly this hotel might have been watched, and, if so, the person who was watching it might have noticed the number of my car, or the driver, and later, applied to him for information. I saw him as soon as I returned. No one had done so."
"That is all very well, but they might have asked him, and found out where he drove you, later."
"They did ask him, later. Why is it, Richard, that you seem to forget that I have done detective work before, too? I suspected that he might be approached, and I subsidized him—gave him ten dollars, and instructed him to let me know, in case anyone questioned him about me."
"Well, late yesterday afternoon, a woman, answering the description you give, did apply to the cabman to find out where he had driven me. Naturally he told her nothing. Then, thinking, I suppose, that I might repeat my visit, she gave him five dollars, and told him to let her know in case I drove from here to any other hotel. She figured, no doubt, that being your wife, I was certain to go and see you."
Duvall sat forward in his chair, an eager look upon his face.
"You did splendidly, Grace," he said. "Much better than I have done. But the important point is this. How was the cabman to let her know, and where? Did she give him her name and address?"
"She gave him a name and address. It is about that, that I wanted to see you."
"What was it?"
"Alice Watson. General Delivery. He was to write her a letter."
Duvall sank back in his chair with a disappointed look.
"An assumed name, of course," he said. "I'm afraid it won't be of much service to us."
"But why? I was going to write this woman a letter, giving her the name of some other hotel—any one would do. Then, she would come there to find you, we could have the cabman, Leary, on watch to point her out, and in that way identify her and perhaps follow her to her home." Duvall shook his head.
"It would have worked splendidly, my dear," he said, "except for the fact that in some way the woman has already discovered the name of my hotel. She will not go to the general delivery window at the post office to get it, now, for she already knows it. And if she did, she would realize as soon as she read your letter that you were not telling her the truth. Is that what you have been so busy about?" He glanced at the half-finished letter that lay on his wife's desk.
"Yes." Grace looked at him rather sheepishly. "I am terribly disappointed," she said. "I really hoped that I had discovered something that would help you." She took from the desk the piece of paper that contained Alice Watson's address, and tearing it into bits, dropped them slowly into the waste basket.
Duvall observed her action.
"What are you tearing up?" he asked.
"Oh, nothing. Merely the bit of paper that contained the woman's assumed name and address. It is of no use any longer." She glanced at a scrap of the paper, about half an inch square, that remained between her fingers, then started. "There must have been something on the other side," she exclaimed. "There's a part of a name here—printed or engraved. It looks like 'Ford.'"
Duvall sprang from his chair and made a dive for the scrap basket.
"Ford!" he exclaimed. "That's queer! We must get every scrap of that card at once."
It took the two of them several minutes to gather from the basket the tiny pieces into which Grace had torn the bit of paper. Then they fitted them together. Duvall saw at once, as soon as he picked up the first scrap, that the address had been written on a card. When the several pieces had at last been assembled upon the top of the desk, it became quite clear that the Watson name and address had been hastily scrawled upon the torn half of a visiting card. Slowly and carefully Duvall turned the bits over. The words engraved upon the opposite side filled him with delight.
There were first the letters "cia," followed by the name "Ford." Beneath were two figures, a "6" and a "2," and after them, West 57th Street.
Duvall gazed at the result in surprise, then taking from his pocketbook the torn half of the card he had found the night before in the cab, he laid it beside the fragments on the desk. The two fitted exactly. The name and address were both plain. Evidently the woman who had interviewed the cabman, Leary, and the woman who had escaped from the cab were one and the same. She had taken a card from her purse, torn it in half, written the "Alice Watson" address that she gave the cabman on one half, and thrust the other back into her handbag. Later, when Duvall had attempted to examine the contents of the bag, the bit of card had fallen to the floor.
