"I made myself go close to look at him – his face was dreadful but he had the beard and the slick hair. I wanted to do something but I didn't have nerve enough, and I had to sit down to pull myself together. Now they say I was in there fifteen minutes, but I wouldn't think it took me that long to get up my nerve, but maybe it did, and then I went and pulled up the right leg of his trousers and pulled his sock down. He had two little scars about four inches above the ankle, and I knew those scars – that's where my uncle got bit by a dog once. I looked at them close. I had to sit down again -" She stopped, with her mouth open. "Oh! That's why it was fifteen minutes! I had forgotten all about that, sitting down again -"

"Then you left? What did you do?"

"I went home to my apartment and phoned Mr. Demarest. I hadn't -"

"Who's Mr. Demarest?"

"He's a lawyer. He was a friend of Uncle Paul's, and he's the executor. I hadn't told him about seeing my uncle last week because after all I had no proof, and I wanted to find my uncle and talk with him first, so I decided to get you to find him for me. But when I got home I thought the only thing to do was to phone Mr. Demarest, so I did, but he had gone out -"

"Confound it," Wolfe grumbled, "why didn't you phone me?"

"Well -" Cynthia looked harassed. "I didn't know you, did I? Well enough for that? How could I tell what you would believe and what you wouldn't?"

"Indeed," Wolfe said sarcastically. "So you decided to keep it from me, running the risk that I might glance at a newspaper. What is the lawyer doing? Reading up?"

She shook her head. "I didn't get him. I phoned again at eleven-thirty, thinking he would be home by then, but he wasn't, and the state I was in it didn't even occur to me to leave word for him to call.