Pointer showed her Cox's letter to the Marvel about his room. She was certain that the writing had been much smaller, and also that the paper was different. She had had to come quite close to put the carafe on the table—“Trust you for that,” agreed Pointer mentally—and had not been able to help seeing the writing, and the paper all in tiny squares. “Eh?” “The paper, sir, all ruled in little squares—such funny paper!” She was quite sure that she had never seen anything of a striped green and white shiny paper such as the detective now showed her. “Not at any time, sir.” Questioned as to the exact hour when she had last seen Eames yesterday morning, she put it down at about eleven o'clock—the occasion which she had just been telling about when she had seen the young man busy with his letter. About the afternoon she could say nothing, as on Saturdays she helped in the ironing room from three to six o'clock. As to visitors, she knew of none. She never saw anyone entering or leaving No. 14 but Mr. Eames himself. No, she had never heard any voices in the room. Asked about a bag, she had seen one once on the table when Mr. Eames was in the room, but never but the once. He kept his wardrobe locked, and she had imagined the bag to be inside. It was yesterday morning when she had seen it for the first and only time. As to his door, he always kept that unlocked,—“I mean to say, unless he was dressing or undressing.” “Now, about Mr. Beale—the gentleman who had occupied No. 14 that evening, had she ever seen him before?” “Well, sir, I thought I had yesterday morning coming along the corridor with the manager, but the housekeeper said it was quite another gentleman, a Mr. Sikes she called him, but he certainly did look very like the American gentleman, as I said to him myself.” “Said to whom?” “To the gentleman last night when I made up the room. He was sitting by the window, and I said to him that surely I had seen him earlier in the day—what I mean to say——” “What did Mr. Beale say?” asked Pointer, feeling that flesh and blood could stand but little more of this damsel's conversation. She could not remember what reply her remark had called forth, which was not surprising, since Mr. Beale, as a matter of fact, had received it in silence. He could learn nothing more from her except that the hour when she had met the man whom she took to be Mr. Beale in company with the manager, had been some time during the lunch hour,—between one and two-thirty, in other words. All his skill in bringing the conversation around to the manager brought him no reward. She knew nothing of anyone's movements yesterday afternoon, so with a compliment on her clear way of stating facts she was dismissed.