n who was named Marie fifteen years ago, and your description helps a
lot. Records were burned, but some of the older men on the force are
walking archives. For the matter of that you might draw out some old
codger in your club and get as much as I can give you--"

"Rather not! I think I'll have to give you my confidence."

"Much the shortest and straightest route. Just fancy you're takin' a
nasty dose of medicine for the good of your health. I guess this is a
case where I can't work in the dark."

"Have you ever noticed an elderly woman, seated in the court of the
Palace Hotel--immensely stout?"

"I should say I had. One of the sights of S.F. Why--of course--she's your
mother-in-law!"

"Has there been any talk about her!"

"Some comment on her size. And her childlike delight in watchin'
the show."

"Nothing else? No one has claimed to recognize her?"

Spaulding sat up straight, his nose pointing. "Recognize her? What
d'you mean?"

"I mean that I overheard a conversation--one-sided--to-day on the
California Street dummy, in which Bisbee accused Madame Delano
practically of what I have told you. At least that is the way I
interpreted it. He called her Marie, alluded in an unmistakable manner to
a disgraceful past in which he had known her intimately, and was
confident that he recognized her in spite of her flesh and white hair. I
am positive that she recognized him, although she was clever enough not
to reply."

"Jimminy! The plot thickens. That scoundrel never forgot a face in his
life. I don't train with him--not by a long sight--so if there's been any
talk in his bunch, I naturally wouldn't have heard it. You say her name
is Marie now?"

"Yes."

"And Perrin is her real name?"

"She comes of a well-known family of Rouen of that name. She lived there
with her child for at least thirteen years before her return to
California. Of that I am certain. Her daughter is now twenty. I wish to
know where she kept that child during the first five years of its life. I
have reason to think it was in the Ursuline Convent at St. Peter."

"That's easy settled. And you think the father's first name was Jim?"

"She told me that his name was James Delano. Also that he died within the
first year of their marriage, when the child was two months old, during
the voyage to Japan. That may be, but I can see no reason for her
returning here unless he died more recently and the settlement of his
estate demanded her presence."