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PAGE 4

The X-Ray Detective
by [?]

Faber looked from one to the other of us without moving a muscle of his face.

“Why, yes,” he replied steadily. I could not make out whether he had expected and been prepared for the question or not. At any rate he added, half serious, half smiling, “Even for her portrait someone was ready to risk even life and honor to kidnap her!”

Evidently in his ardor he personified the picture, felt that the thief must have been moved by what the psychologists call “an imperative idea” for the mere possession of such a treasure.

“Still,” Craig remarked dryly, “the wanderings of the lost Duchess by Gainsborough for a quarter of a century stuffed into a tin tube, to say nothing of the final sordid ending of the capture of Mona Lisa, might argue a devotion among art thieves a bit short of infatuation. I think we’ll find this lady, too, to be held for ransom, not for love.”

Faber said nothing. He was evidently waiting for Kennedy to proceed.

“I may photograph your copy of the Fete?” queried Craig finally, “so as to use it in identifying the real one?”

“Surely,” replied the collector. “I have no objection. If I should happen to be out when you came, I’ll leave word with my man to let you go ahead.”

Just then the telephone rang and Faber reached for it before we could thank him and say good-night.

“Hello–oh, Miss Tourville, how do you do? Why–er–yes–yes, I’m listening.”

They chatted for several minutes, Faber answering mostly in monosyllables. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I thought the conversation, at least at his end of the line, constrained. As he hung up the receiver, I fancied, too, that Faber seemed to look on us with a sort of suspicion. What was his connection with Rita, I wondered? What had Rita told him?

A moment later we had said good-by and had gained the street, Kennedy still making no comment on the case.

“There’s nothing more that we can do tonight,” remarked Craig, looking at his watch finally as we walked along. “Let us go over to the City Laboratory and see Dr. Leslie, as I promised Blythe.”