ock, "that I don't care about her victuals. She
was in love with the dead man, wasn't she?"

"I guess so," Blanche with profound if unconscious psychology replied.
"She was always scrapping with him. She----"

"Tell me," Peacock interrupted, "what happened the last night he was
there."

"It was awful. He was trying to get rid of her. He wasn't much and I
told him so, but he was all she had. When I first came to her she said
she was an orphan, that she hadn't anybody anywhere, that they were
all dead."

"She may have meant," Peacock with even profounder psychology
interjected, "that she was dead to them."

But this insinuation Blanche resented. "She could be lively enough
when she liked."

"Who came to see her?"

"Mr. L."

"No one else?"

Blanche shook her head.

"Whom did she write to?"

"How do I know?"

"Didn't you ever see her write to anyone?"

"Well, the last night, after he had gone, she did write a letter and
gave it to me to post. When I came back----"

"Whom was it addressed to?"

Blanche shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know, I can't read. When I
came back she was crying and getting a few duds together and I helped
her."

"Did she tell you where she was going?"

"Sure. To Europe. I saw her off the next day. She went in the
sewerage."

"In the steerage, do you mean?" asked Peacock. "But she hadn't any
money? Didn't Loftus give her any?"

"She wouldn't take his money, she threw it back at him. She would not
take anything he had given her. She left a room full of dresses and
jewelry. They are at the Arundel now. She told me----"

"Did you see her on board?"

Blanche nodded.

"Mightn't she have left the ship before it sailed?"

"Yes, if she had wanted. I wouldn't have stopped her. But I stood
there and as the ship went out she waved her little hand at me
and--and----"

"Do you remember the ship's name?"

But now Blanche was weeping profusely.

"No matter," said Peacock. "I can find out."

He did. He found out, too, that when Loftus was shot Marie Leroy was
on the high seas. And there he was without a clue. What is worse,
there was the eager public quite as deficient.

Yet though the clue which the girl represented was necessarily
abandoned, there remained a theory. There remained even two theories.
The first was robbery.

Loftus, when found, had about him not so much as a five-cent piece.
The wad of bills which men of means are supposed to carry, and which,
having credit