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A girl answered his ring, but at sight of him she shut the door hurriedly, explaining through the crack:

“Mrs. MacDougal is out and you can’t come in.”

“But I want to talk to you.”

“I’m not allowed to talk to reporters,” she declared. “Mrs. MacDougal won’t let me.”

A slight Scotch accent gave Anderson his cue. “MacDougal is a good Scotch name. I’m Scotch myself, and so are you.” He smiled his boarding-house smile, and the girl’s eyes twinkled back at him. “Didn’t she tell you I was coming?”

“Why, no, sir. Aren’t you a reporter?”

“I’ve been told that I’m not. I came to look at a room.”

“What room?” the girl asked, quickly. “We haven’t any vacant rooms.”

“That’s queer,” Anderson frowned. “I can’t be mistaken. I’m sure Mrs. MacDougal said there was one.”

The door opened slowly. “Maybe she meant the one on the second floor.”

“Precisely.” An instant later he was following his guide up-stairs.

Anderson recognized the room at a glance, from its description, but the girl did not mention the tragedy which had occurred therein, so he proceeded to talk terms with her, prolonging his stay as long as possible, meanwhile using his eyes to the best advantage. He invented an elaborate ancestry which he traced backward through the pages of Scottish Chiefs, the only book of the sort he had ever read, and by the time he was ready to leave the girl had thawed out considerably.

“I’ll take the room,” he told her, “and I’m well pleased to get it. I don’t see how such a good one stands vacant in this location.”

There was an instant’s pause, then his companion confessed: “There’s a reason. You’ll find it out sooner or later, so I may as well tell you. That’s where the yellow-haired girl you hear so much about killed herself. I hope it won’t make any difference to you, Mr.–“

“Gregor. Certainly not. I read about the case. Canadian, wasn’t she?”

“Oh yes! There’s no doubt of it. She paid her rent with a Canadian bill, and, besides, I noticed her accent. I didn’t tell the reporters, however, they’re such a fresh lot.”

Paul’s visit, it appeared, had served to establish one thing, at least, a thing which the trained investigators had not discovered. Canadian money in Buffalo was too common to excite comment, therefore none of them had seen fit to follow out that clue of the two-dollar bill.

“The papers had it that she was some wealthy girl,” the former speaker ran on, “but I know better.”

“Indeed? How do you know?”

“Her hands! They were good hands, and she used them as if she knew what they were made for.”

“Anything else?”

“No. She seemed very sad and didn’t say much. Of course I only saw her once.”

Anderson questioned the girl at some further length, but discovered nothing of moment, so he left, declaring that he would probably move into the room on the following day.

Prom the rooming-house he went directly to the Morgue, and for a second time examined the body, confining his attention particularly to the hands. The right one showed nothing upon which to found a theory, save that it was, indeed, a capable hand with smooth skin and well-tended nails; but on examining the left Paul noted a marked peculiarity. Near the ends of the thumb and the first finger the skin was roughened, abrased; there were numerous tiny black spots beneath the skin, which, upon careful scrutiny, he discovered to be microscopic blood-blisters.

For a long time he puzzled over this phenomenon which had escaped all previous observers, but to save him he could invent no explanation for it. He repaired finally to the office of the attendant and asked for the girl’s clothes, receiving permission to examine a small bundle.

“Where’s the rest?” he demanded.

“That’s all she had,” said the man.

“No baggage at all?”

“Not a thing but what she stood up in. The coroner has her jewelry and things of that sort.”

Anderson searched the contents of the bundle with the utmost care, but found no mark of any sort. The garments, although inexpensive, were beautifully neat and clean, and they displayed the most marvelous examples of needlework he had ever seen. Among the effects was a plush muff, out of which, as he picked it up, fell a pair of little knitted mittens–or was there a pair? Finding but the one, he shook the muff again, then looked through the other things.