"Certainly I will admit it. The hideous thing startled me. As for escaping from the cab, I had every reason to do so. You had not only attempted to drug me, but after that you tried to steal the contents of my purse. You are the one who ought to be arrested, not I." The woman's attitude began to annoy Duvall, especially as, so far, he realized fully that the evidence against her was entirely circumstantial and vague. He turned away, and began to search the rooms. The search, although he conducted it with the utmost minuteness, was quite unproductive of results. If the woman possessed a typewriter, she had apparently made away with it. The scrap basket contained nothing but a few torn bits of paper of no value. There was no stationery on the small desk in the living room, no black sealing wax, such as had been used to make the seals. Duvall began to realize that the case against his prisoner was far from complete. Returning from a fruitless search of the bedroom, Duvall's eye fell upon the two suitcases that the women had carried in their flight. He bent over to them at once, and proceeded to open them, one after the other. "Search them, please." He nodded to Grace. The latter did so with the utmost care, but found nothing of an incriminating nature. The two women sat in stony silence, showing little interest in the proceedings. Duvall went over to them. "Show me your rings," he said to Miss Norman. The woman held out her hand. "Take them off." She stripped from her finger three rings. One was a gold seal with a monogram upon it, another a cheap affair set with pearls, the third a twisted gold band. None of the rings contained the mysterious death's-head seal, or could in any way have concealed it. An examination of Miss Ford's stock of jewelry produced no better results. "Let me see the contents of your purse," Duvall said, indicating a leather bag the Norman woman carried on her wrist. She handed the bag over with an almost imperceptible smile. Duvall examined it but without result. The seal was not inside. Nor did Miss Ford's purse, a silver one, contain anything worthy of his notice. He handed the two back. "Anything else you would like to see?" Miss Norman asked with cutting irony.