“Did she have any visitors?  Did this Mr. Gonzales call?” asked Kennedy at length.

“She had one visitor, a woman who called and asked if a Madame de Nevers was stopping at the hotel,” answered McBride.  “That was what the clerk was telling me when I happened to catch sight of you.  He says that, obedient to the orders from the maid, he told the visitor that Madame was not at home.”

“Who was this visitor, do you suppose?” asked Craig.  “Did she leave any card or message?  Is there any clue to her?”

The detective looked at him earnestly for a time as if he hesitated to retail what might be merely pure gossip.

“The clerk does not know this absolutely, but from his acquaintance with society news and the illustrated papers he is sure that he recognised her.  He says that he feels positive that it was Miss Catharine Lovelace.”

“The Southern heiress,” exclaimed Kennedy.  “Why, the papers say that she is engaged—–­”

“Exactly,” cut in McBride, “the heiress who is rumoured to be engaged to the Duc de Chateaurouge.”

Kennedy and I exchanged glances.  “Yes,” I added, recollecting a remark I had heard a few days before from our society reporter on the Star, “I believe it has been said that Chateaurouge is in this country, incognito.”

“A pretty slender thread on which to hang an identification,” McBride hastened to remark.  “Newspaper photographs are not the best means of recognising anybody.  Whatever there may be in it, the fact remains that Madame de Nevers, supposing that to be her real name, has been dead for at least a day or two.  The first thing to be determined is whether this is a death from natural causes, a suicide, or a murder.  After we have determined that we shall be in a position to run down this Lovelace clue.”

Kennedy said nothing and I could not gather whether he placed greater or less value on the suspicion of the hotel clerk.  He had been making a casual examination of the body on the bed, and finding nothing he looked intently about the room as if seeking some evidence of how the crime had been committed.

To me the thing seemed incomprehensible, that without an outcry being overheard by any of the guests a murder could have been done in a crowded hotel in which the rooms on every side had been occupied and people had been passing through the halls at all hours.  Had it indeed been a suicide, in spite of McBride’s evident conviction to the contrary?

A low exclamation from Kennedy attracted our attention.  Caught in the filmy lace folds of the woman’s dress he had found a few small and thin pieces of glass.  He was regarding them with an interest that was oblivious to everything else.  As he turned them over and over and tried to fit them together they seemed to form at least a part of what had once been a hollow globe of very thin glass, perhaps a quarter of an inch or so in diameter.

“How was the body discovered?” asked Craig at length, looking up at McBride quickly.