For on the mantlepiece, just above where the weeping girl crouched,
stood a photograph--the photograph of a young and good-looking,
gaily-smiling man. Across it, in a boyish and somewhat unformed
hand, was written
"Devotedly yours,
Charley Wright."
It was this photograph that had caught Dunn's eyes. Both it and
the writing and the signature he recognized, and his look was very
stern, his eyes as cold as death itself, as slowly, slowly he pushed
back the door of the room another inch or so.
CHAPTER V
A WOMAN AND A MAN
The girl stirred. It was as though some knowledge of the slow
opening of the door had penetrated to her consciousness before as
yet she actually saw or heard anything.
She rose to her feet, drying her eyes with her handkerchief, and
as she was moving to a drawer near to get a clean one her glance
fell on the partially-open door.
"I thought I shut it," she said aloud in a puzzled manner.
She crossed the floor to the door and closed it with a push from
her hand and in the passage outside Dunn stood still, not certain
what to do next.
But for that photograph he might have gone quietly away, giving up
the reckless plan that had formed itself so suddenly in his mind
while he watched the burglar at work.
That photograph, however, with its suggestion that he stood indeed
on the brink of the solution of the mystery, seemed a summons to
him to go on.
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