ature of Miss Morton's injuries?" he asked.

"She has no injuries, at least in the sense I think you mean. She is
suffering solely from the effects of shock."

"What sort of shock?"

"I do not know, of course. Fright, of some sort, terrible fright, I
should say. I am informed that some woman, some enemy of hers, came to
this room, and was alone with her."

"There is no evidence of any violence?"

"None whatever. But the effects of shock are often worse than those of
actual physical violence. They have frequently been known to cause
death."

"You do not, I hope, anticipate anything of the sort in this case."

"I cannot say." The doctor shook his head. "She must have been very
weak. Her system is responding very slowly."

Duvall glanced over to where Mrs. Morton hung in agonized silence over
her daughter's bed, then went out into the sitting room. It seemed to
him well nigh incredible that the woman responsible for all this had
been able to move about, to elude pursuit, to carry out her threats,
apparently without the least hesitation or fear of capture. His
professional pride had received severe shock.

Two means of finding the woman, he felt, were still open to him. One was
to trace her through Miss Ford. He did not doubt that, after what he had
said to the latter, she would make an immediate attempt to warn her
confederate of the danger that threatened her. Of course, the Ford girl
might communicate with her companion by telephone, in which event the
tracing would be difficult, if not impossible.

The other hope of tracing the woman lay in Grace. Why had she left the
hotel so suddenly? He did not of course know the source of the telephone
message, and could only surmise that Grace had in some way been able to
pick up the woman's trail.

Leaving Mrs. Morton with a few words of encouragement, he made his way
to his hotel. There was no news there of Grace, however, and he realized
that it was now too late to accomplish anything by returning to the
house on 57th Street. Marcia Ford would either have long since retired,
or else would have left the house to communicate with the woman who had
been with her earlier in the evening. Considerably upset by the events
of the past three hours, Duvall retired to his room, and sat down to
think the whole matter over.

Proceeding on the assumption that the woman in question, and Miss Ford
were acting together, all the events at the studio, the fake telegram,
the missing