Quincy meekly accepted the rebuff without reply, but there was a peculiar smile playing about his lips as he turned away. Apparently undisturbed, he wandered nonchalantly out of the room, with Lamson, angered at the treatment his special representative had received, trailing behind. To the remaining rooms on the first floor Quincy paid only the most casual notice, doing little more than to glance into each before ascending the stairs. On the second floor, however, his interest appeared to awaken, especially when the woman’s chamber had been reached.
Once within the chamber his aimless wandering ceased, and his every movement appeared to take on a definite purpose. He glanced sharply over the walls, carefully scrutinizing the few pictures with which they were adorned, after which he stepped briskly to the bureau, where he conducted a most minute examination of the contents of every drawer. Once he paused and held up a small packet before the gaze of Lamson, grinning as he did so.
‘I imagine our friends downstairs would be interested in this,’ he remarked.
‘What are they?’ Lamson questioned eagerly.
‘Bank books. Your late cook evidently patronized several savings banks, instead of hoarding her money as has been suspected. I’ll place them back where they were, and let the police discover them when they reach this point in their search. At their present rate of speed they should reach this room in a day or two.’
For some little time, after the discovery of the books, he remained before the bureau, searching every nook and cranny of it. At last, appearing vastly dissatisfied with the result, he arose and stood meditatively in the middle of the room, allowing his eyes to run rapidly over first one article of furniture and then another.
‘Did your cook have a trunk when she came here?’ he questioned abruptly.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Lamson slowly, as he strived to remember the event of twelve years previous. ‘No, I am sure she brought with her one of those old-fashioned canvas extension bags. It must be around here somewhere.’
Quincy’s interest appeared to renew itself at the information, and he was immediately deep in his search again. At last, with much shuffling and scuffling of his feet, he emerged backward from a dark nook in the closet, dragging after him the described bag. Placing it on the floor, he arose and stared at Lamson through eyes shining with eagerness.
‘Lamson,’ he said, ‘I expect to find the clue I want in that bag. There is one thing that no woman, and few men for that matter, regardless of station in life, is without in these days. It may be only the most tantalizing of clues which I shall be able to make nothing of, but I’ll stake my reputation that it’s there.’
With no further explanation he threw back the cover of the bag, dropped on his knees before it, and dug into its contents. For several moments there was no sound save his eager breathing, echoed by the puffing breaths of Lamson, and the swishing of articles being hastily overturned in the bag. Then, with an almost explosive exhalation, he started back and sprang to his feet, three small articles in his hand.
‘I have it, Lamson,’ he exclaimed. ‘I have it. Now, what can we make of it?’
He strode to the nearest window, with Lamson scuttling at his heels, and held up to the light three small, unmounted photographs. ‘You see, Lamson,’ he said, ‘every woman has a certain degree of sentiment in her makeup. Consequently, in these days of plentiful photographs, there is scarcely a woman anywhere who does not possess photographs of her early home, or associations surrounding it. Here we have the photographs, but, as they are not mounted, and bear no photographer’s seal, their value to us will depend on our ability to recognize the places represented.’
Lamson stared incredulously. ‘But my dear Sawyer,’ he protested, ‘those photographs may represent scenes hundreds or thousands of miles from here. How are we to recognize them? ‘
Quincy lowered the photographs and turned impressively. ‘Lamson,’ he said, ‘I have not yet looked at those photographs closely, but mark my words when I tell you that they will represent scenes within a radius of fifty miles. That woman was not a traveller.’
Without further comment he raised the photographs once more and studied them carefully.
The first depicted a woman, beyond doubt Mrs Buck at a period much earlier in her life, standing before a small cottage of the style of architecture most frequently seen among the houses of the ocean fishermen. The second showed a large open boat, a trawler, fully manned, and lying just below a wharf with the wharf’s buildings visible in the background. The last showed two fishermen standing on the steps of a hotel, and holding between them a strange monster of the deep, while, from above, curious guests peered down from over the balcony rail.
‘There, Lamson, I think we have our clue.’
‘But how? What in the deuce is there to all that stuff that shows you anything?’ Lamson was fairly staggered with bewilderment.
‘Look here!’ Quincy flipped the second photograph into view. ‘That trawler indicates, as do all three photographs, a fishing community. Now look at the buildings in the background. On the central building you can dimly distinguish the sign of the fishing company: The Bay State Codfish Company. Now look at this third photograph. Above the fishermen’s heads is the sign of the Puritan Hotel. By coupling those two names we have our clue. Both the Bay State Codfish Company and the Puritan Hotel are located in Gloucester. In the photograph of Mrs Buck herself we find her standing before a typical fisherman’s cottage. Therefore, does our clue not point toward Gloucester as a starting-point in our search for the woman’s identity and that of her murderer? I also have another clue, but I shall leave that out of the matter for the present.’
‘Then you will go to Gloucester?’ Lamson questioned.
‘At once, although I would suggest
