“She?” This certainly unexpected blow seemed to make some impression.  “Will you give me your reasons for such an assertion?  Was the name Duclos a false one?  Was her name like that of her daughter, Willetts?  If so, allow me to assure you that I never heard of a Willetts any more than I have of a Duclos.  That a woman of whatever name and nationality should desert her child fills me with horror.  I cannot speak of her, dead though she be, with any equanimity.  A mother and act as she did!  She herself was to blame, and only she for what happened to that beautiful girl—­so young—­so sweet—­so innocent.  I have a weakness for youth.  To me a girl of that type is sacred.  Had I been blessed with such a child——­But there, I am straying again from our point.  What makes you say Madame Duclos knew me?”

Before replying, the Coroner rose, and taking a small package from his desk, opened it, and laid out before the astonished eyes of Mr. Roberts the freshly printed photograph of himself with which we are so well acquainted, and then the half-demolished one which for all its imperfections showed that it had been originally struck off from the same negative.

“Do you recognize this portrait of yourself as one taken by Fredericks some dozen years ago?”

“Certainly.  But this other?  This end and corner of what must have been my picture too, where was it found?”

“Ah, that is what I have called you here to learn.  This remnant of what you have just admitted to have been your photograph also was found in the very condition in which you see it now, in the wastebasket of the room where Madame Duclos lodged previous to her flight to the Catskills.”

“This! with the face——­”

“Just that!  With the face riddled out of it by bullets!  She shot six into it at intervals; waiting for the passing of an elevated train by her windows, in the hope that the bigger noise would drown the lesser.”

“It is nothing,” was Mr. Roberts’ indignant comment, as he brushed the picture aside.  “That was never my picture, or she wanted a target for her skill and didn’t care what she took.  That is all I have to say to you or to the Coroner of Greene County, on a matter in which I have no concern.  I am sorry to disappoint both of you, but it is so.”

He rose, and the Coroner did not seek to detain him.  He merely observed, as the director turned to go: 

“Have you heard the latest news about Mrs. Taylor?”

“No.”

“She is improving rapidly.  Soon she will be able to appear before the jury already chosen to inquire into the cause and manner of Miss Willetts’ death.”

“A fine woman!” came in a burst from the director’s lips as he faced about for a good-bye nod.  “I don’t know when I have seen one I admired more.”

And Coroner Price had nothing to say, he was stupefied.

But it was not so with Mr. Gryce, who entered immediately upon Mr. Roberts’ departure.