“You speak true. Fifteen years ago. Sir Frederic said. But from neither Sir Frederic nor the clipping did I obtain the exact date, and for it I am yearning. On what day of what month, presumably in the year 1913, did Eve Durand wander off into unlimitable darkness of India? Could you supply the fact?”
Rankin nodded. “A story like that must have been in the newspapers all over the world. I’ll have a look at our files for 1913 and see what I can find.”
“Good enough,” said Chan. “Note one other matter, if you please. Suppose you find accounts. Is the name of Colonel John Beetham anywhere mentioned?”
“What! Beetham! That bird? Is he in it?”
“You know him?”
“Sure—I interviewed him. A mysterious sort of guy. If he’s in it, the story’s even better than I thought.”
“He may not be,” warned Chan. “I am curious, that is all. You will then explore in files?”
“I certainly will. You’ll hear from me pronto. I’m on my way now.”
The reporter hurried off, leaving Chan to his ponderous book. For a long time he wandered with Colonel Beetham through lonely places, over blazing sands at one moment, at another over wastelands of snow. Men and camels and mules lay dead on the trail, but Beetham pushed on. Nothing stopped him.
During lunch the telephone rang, and Kirk answered. “Hello—oh, Miss Morrow. Of course. Good—he’ll be there. So will I⸺I beg your pardon? … No trouble at all. Mr. Chan’s a stranger here, and I don’t want him to get lost. … Yes … Yes, I’m coming, so get resigned, lady, get resigned.”
He hung up. “Well, we’re invited to Miss Morrow’s office at two o’clock to meet the Enderbys. That is, you’re invited, and I’m going anyhow.”
At two precisely Chan and his host entered the girl’s office, a dusty, ill-lighted room piled high with law books. The deputy district attorney rose from behind an orderly desk and greeted them smilingly.
Kirk stood looking about the room. “Great Scott—is this where you spend your days?” He walked to the window. “Charming view of the alley, isn’t it? I must take you out in the country some time and show you the grass and the trees. You’d be surprised.”
“Oh, this room isn’t so bad,” the girl answered. “I’m not like some people. I keep my mind on my work.”
Flannery came in. “Well, here we are again,” he said. “All set for another tall story. Mrs. Enderby this time, eh? More women in this case than in the League of Women Voters.”
“You still appear in baffled stage,” Chan suggested.
“Sure I do,” admitted the Captain. “I am. And how about you? I don’t hear any very illuminating deductions from you.”
“At any moment now,” grinned Chan, “I may dazzle you with great light.”
“Well, don’t hurry on my account,” advised Flannery. “We’ve got all year on this, of course. It’s only Sir Frederic Bruce of Scotland Yard who was murdered. Nobody cares—except the whole British Empire.”
“You have made progress?” Chan inquired.
“How could I? Every time I get all set to go at the thing in a reasonable way, I have to stop and hunt for a missing woman. I tell you, I’m getting fed up on that end of it. If there’s any more nonsense about—”
The door opened, and a clerk admitted Carrick Enderby and his wife. Eileen Enderby, even before she spoke, seemed flustered and nervous. Miss Morrow rose.
“How do you do,” she said. “Sit down, please. It was good of you to come.”
“Of course we came,” Eileen Enderby replied. “Though what it is you want, I for one can’t imagine—”
“We must let Miss Morrow tell us what is wanted, Eileen,” drawled her husband.
“Oh, naturally,” Mrs. Enderby’s blue eyes turned from one to the other and rested at last on the solid bulk of Captain Flannery.
“We’re going to ask a few questions, Mrs. Enderby,” began Miss Morrow. “Questions that I know you’ll be glad to answer. Tell me—had you ever met Sir Frederic Bruce before Mr. Kirk’s dinner party the other night?”
“I’d never even heard of him,” replied the woman firmly.
“Ah, yes. Yet just after Colonel Beetham began to show his pictures, Sir Frederic called you out into a passageway. He wanted to speak to you alone.”
Eileen Enderby looked at her husband, who nodded. “Yes,” she admitted. “He did. I was never so surprised in my life.”
“What did Sir Frederic want to speak to you about?”
“It was a most amazing thing. He mentioned a girl—a girl I once knew very well.”
“What about the girl?”
“Well—it was quite a mystery. This girl Sir Frederic spoke of—she disappeared one night. Just walked off into the dark and was never heard of again.”
There was a moment’s silence. “Did she disappear at Peshawar, in India?” Miss Morrow inquired.
“India? Why, no—not at all,” replied Eileen Enderby.
“Oh, I see. Then he was speaking of Marie Lantelme, who disappeared from Nice?”
“Nice? Marie Lantelme? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Mrs. Enderby’s pretty forehead wrinkled in amazement.
For the first time, Chan spoke. “It is now how many years,” he asked, “since your friend was last seen?”
“Why—it must be—let me think. Seven—yes—seven years.”
“She disappeared from New York, perhaps?”
“From New York—yes.”
“Her name was Jennie Jerome?”
“Yes. Jennie Jerome.”
Chan took out his wallet and removed a clipping. He handed it to Miss Morrow. “Once more, and I am hoping for the last time,” he remarked, “I would humbly request that you read aloud a scrap of paper from Sir Frederic’s effects.”
Miss Morrow took the paper, her eyes wide. Captain Flannery’s face was a study in scarlet. The girl began to read:
“What happened to Jennie Jerome? A famous New York modiste and an even more famous New York illustrator are among those who have been asking themselves that question for the past seven years.
“Jennie Jerome was what the French call a mannequin, a model employed by the fashionable house of DuFour et Cie, on Fifth Avenue, in
