“She didn’t say who this person is that she thought guilty last night?”

“No.”

“Did she say why she thought him guilty or what changed her mind?  Did she drop any hint?  Try to remember.”

Alice shook her head.  “No, she said nothing about that.”

Coquenil rose and walked back and forth across the study, hands deep in his pockets, head forward, eyes on the floor, back and forth several times without a word.  Then he stopped before Alice, eying her intently as if making up his mind about something.

“I’m going to trust you, mademoiselle, with an important mission.  You’re only a girl, but—­you’ve been thrown into this tragic affair, and—­you’ll be glad to help your lover, won’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” she answered eagerly.

“You may as well know that we are facing a situation not altogether—­er—­encouraging.  I believe M. Kittredge is innocent and I hope to prove it, but others think differently and they have serious things against him.”

“What things?” she demanded, her cheeks paling.

“No matter now.”

“There can be nothing against him,” declared the girl, “he is the soul of honor.”

“I hope so,” answered the detective dryly, “but he is also in prison, and unless we do something he is apt to stay there.”

“What can we do?” murmured Alice, twining her fingers piteously.

“We must get at the truth, we must find this woman who came to see you.  The quickest way to do that is through Kittredge himself.  He knows all about her, if we can make him speak.  So far he has refused to say a word, but there is one person who ought to unseal his lips—­that is the girl he loves.”

“Oh, yes,” exclaimed Alice, her face lighting with new hope, “I think I could, I am sure I could, only—­will they let me see him?”

“That is the point.  It is against the prison rule for a person au secret to see anyone except his lawyer, but I know the director of the Sante and I think——­”

“You mean the director of the depot?”

“No, for M. Kittredge was transferred from the depot this morning.  You know the depot is only a temporary receiving station, but the Sante is one of the regular French prisons.  It’s there they send men charged with murder.”

Alice shivered at the word.  “Yes,” she murmured, “and—­what were you saying?”

“I say that I know the director of the Sante and I think, if I send you to him with a strong note, he will make an exception—­I think so.”

“Splendid!” she cried joyfully.  “And when shall I present the note?”

“To-day, at once; there isn’t an hour to lose.  I will write it now.”

Coquenil sat down at his massive Louis XV table with its fine bronzes and quickly addressed an urgent appeal to M. Dedet, director of the Sante, asking him to grant the bearer a request that she would make in person, and assuring him that, by so doing, he would confer upon Paul Coquenil a deeply appreciated favor.  Alice watched him with a sense of awe, and she thought uneasily of her dream about the face in the angry sun and the land of the black people.