Without definite hope of seeing Gregory Hall, but hopeful of learning something about him, I strolled back to the Crawford house.  I went directly to the office, and by good luck found Gregory Hall there alone.  He was still searching among the papers of Mr. Crawford’s desk.

“Ah, Mr. Burroughs,” he said, as I entered, “I’m glad to see you.  If detectives detect, you have a fine chance here to do a bit of good work.  I wouldn’t mind offering you an honorarium myself, if you could unearth the will that has so mysteriously disappeared.”

Hall’s whole manner had changed.  He had laid aside entirely the grave demeanor which he had shown at the funeral, and was again the alert business man.  He was more than this.  He was eager,—­ offensively so,—­in his search for the will.  It needed no detective instinct to see that the fortune of Joseph Crawford and its bestowment were matters of vital interest to him.

But though his personal feelings on the subject might be distasteful to me, it was certainly part of my duty to aid in the search, and so with him I looked through the various drawers and filing cabinets.  The papers representing or connected with the financial interests of the late millionaire were neatly filed and labelled; but in some parts of the desk we found the hodge-podge of personal odds and ends which accumulates with nearly everybody.

Hall seemed little interested in those, but to my mind they showed a possibility of casting some light on Mr. Crawford’s personal affairs.

But among old letters, photographs, programs, newspaper clippings, and such things, there was nothing that seemed of the slightest interest, until at last I chanced upon a photograph that arrested my attention.

“Do you know who this is?” I inquired.

“No,” returned Hall, with a careless glance at it; “a friend of Mr. Crawford’s, I suppose.”

“More than a friend, I should judge,” and I turned the back of the picture toward him.  Across it was written, “with loving Christmas greetings, from M.S.P.”; and it was dated as recently as the Christmas previous.

“Well,” said Hall, “Mr. Crawford may have had a lady friend who cared enough about him to send an affectionate greeting, but I never heard of her before, and I doubt if she is in any way responsible for the disappearance of this will.”

He went on searching through the desks, giving no serious heed to the photograph.  But to me it seemed important.  I alone knew of the visiting card in the gold bag.  I alone knew that that bag belonged to a lady named Purvis.  And here was a photograph initialed by a lady whose surname began with P, and who was unmistakably on affectionate terms with Mr. Crawford.  To my mind the links began to form a chain; the lady who had sent her photograph at Christmas, and who had left her gold bag in Mr. Crawford’s office the night he was killed, surely was a lady to be questioned.