so far, he
realized fully that the evidence against her was entirely circumstantial
and vague. He turned away, and began to search the rooms.

The search, although he conducted it with the utmost minuteness, was
quite unproductive of results. If the woman possessed a typewriter, she
had apparently made away with it. The scrap basket contained nothing but
a few torn bits of paper of no value. There was no stationery on the
small desk in the living room, no black sealing wax, such as had been
used to make the seals. Duvall began to realize that the case against
his prisoner was far from complete. Returning from a fruitless search of
the bedroom, Duvall's eye fell upon the two suitcases that the women had
carried in their flight. He bent over to them at once, and proceeded to
open them, one after the other.

"Search them, please." He nodded to Grace.

The latter did so with the utmost care, but found nothing of an
incriminating nature. The two women sat in stony silence, showing little
interest in the proceedings. Duvall went over to them.

"Show me your rings," he said to Miss Norman.

The woman held out her hand.

"Take them off."

She stripped from her finger three rings. One was a gold seal with a
monogram upon it, another a cheap affair set with pearls, the third a
twisted gold band. None of the rings contained the mysterious
death's-head seal, or could in any way have concealed it.

An examination of Miss Ford's stock of jewelry produced no better
results.

"Let me see the contents of your purse," Duvall said, indicating a
leather bag the Norman woman carried on her wrist.

She handed the bag over with an almost imperceptible smile. Duvall
examined it but without result. The seal was not inside. Nor did Miss
Ford's purse, a silver one, contain anything worthy of his notice. He
handed the two back.

"Anything else you would like to see?" Miss Norman asked with cutting
irony.

Duvall walked over to the window and looked out. It was still quite
dark. The woman's assurance puzzled him. It was quite clear now that
unless he could find the typewriter, the letter paper, the missing seal,
and could connect this woman with them, there remained but a single way
in which she could be connected with the attacks upon Miss Morton, and
that would be by the direct testimony of the motion-picture actress
herself, concerning the woman's visit to her room. But suppose the visit
had been made in disguise. It would have