the start much more might have been accomplished in unravelling
the mystery.

There was evident sincerity in Mrs. Blackwell as she replied
quickly, "Absolutely none. Another girl from the office was with
her part of the time, then left her to take the subway. We don't
live far uptown. It wouldn't have taken Betty long to get home,
even if she had walked, after that, through a crowded street,
too."

"Of course, she may have met a friend, may have gone somewhere
with the friend," put in Kennedy, as if trying out the remark to
see what effect it might have.

"Where could she go?" asked Mrs. Blackwell in naive surprise,
looking at him with a counterpart of the eyes we had seen in the
picture. "I hope you don't think that Betty---"

The little widow was on the verge of tears again at the mere hint
that her daughter might have had friends that were not all,
perhaps, that they should be.

Carton came to the rescue. "Miss Blackwell," he interposed, "was a
very attractive girl, very. She had hosts of admirers, as every
attractive girl must have. Most of them, all of them, as far as
Mrs. Blackwell knows and I have been able to find out, were young
men at the office where she worked, or friends of that sort--not
the ordinary clerk, but of the rising, younger, self-made
generation. Still, they don't seem to have interested her
particularly as far as I have been able to discover. She merely