Subduing my indignation at this back thrust, I employed my time in taking note of such details as had escaped my previous attention.  They were not many.  The open writing-desk—­in which, however I found no letters or written documents of any kind, only a few sheets of paper, with pen, ink, etc.; the brush and hairpins scattered on the bureau as though the girl had been interrupted while arranging her hair (if she had been interrupted); and the absence of any great pile of work such as one would expect to see in a room set apart for sewing, were all I could discover.  Not much to help us, in case this was to prove an affair of importance as I began to suspect.

With Mr. Gryce’s arrival, however, things soon assumed a better shape.  He came to the basement door, was ushered in by your humble servant, had the whole matter as far as I had investigated it, at his finger-ends in a moment, and was up-stairs and in that room before I, who am called the quickest man in the force as you all know, could have time to determine just what difference his presence would make to me in a pecuniary way in event of Mrs. Daniels’ promises amounting to anything.  He did not remain there long, but when he came down I saw that his interest was in no wise lessened.

“What kind of a looking girl was this?” he asked, hurrying up to Mrs. Daniels who had withdrawn into a recess in the lower hall while all this was going on.  “Describe her to me, hair, eyes, complexion, etc.; you know.”

“I—­I—­don’t know as I can,” she stammered reluctantly, turning very red in the face.  “I am a poor one for noticing.  I will call one of the girls, I—­” She was gone before we realized she had not finished her sentence.

“Humph!” broke from Mr. Gryce’s lips as he thoughtfully took down a vase that stood on a bracket near by and looked into it.

I did not venture a word.

When Mrs. Daniels came back she had with her a trim-looking girl of prepossessing appearance.

“This is Fanny,” said she; “she knows Emily well, being in the habit of waiting on her at table; she will tell you what you want to hear.  I have explained to her,” she went on, nodding towards Mr. Gryce with a composure such as she had not before displayed; “that you are looking for your niece who ran away from home some time ago to go into some sort of service.”

“Certainly, ma’am,” quoth that gentleman, bowing with mock admiration to the gas-fixture.  Then carelessly shifting his glance to the cleaning-cloth which Fanny held rather conspicuously in her hand, he repeated the question he had already put to Mrs. Daniels.

The girl, tossing her head just a trifle, at once replied: 

“O she was good-looking enough, if that is what you mean, for them as likes a girl with cheeks as white as this cloth was afore I rubbed the spoons with it.  As for her eyes, they was blacker than her hair, which was the blackest I ever see.  She had no flesh at all, and as for her figure—­” Fanny glanced down on her own well developed person, and gave a shrug inexpressibly suggestive.