Zizi kept silent in utter exasperation. She knew Wise well enough to be sure he was on the trail of a real discovery, but her impatience could scarcely stand his mutterings and his air of suppressed excitement. However, there was nothing to do but wait for his further elucidation and when at last he closed the books and looked up at her, his face was fairly transfigured with joyous expectancy. “Come on, girl,” he cried, “come on.” He rose, and, as Zizi followed, they went back to the superintendent’s office. “Can you tell us, Doctor Hasbrook,” Wise asked, “where we can find two nurses who were here twenty years ago? One was named Black and one Morton.” This was a matter of definite record, and Hasbrook soon informed them that Nurse Black had died some years ago but that Nurse Morton had married and was still living in Greenvale. “Thank Heaven,” murmured Wise as he took the address of Mrs Briggs, who had been Nurse Morton. To her house they then went, Zizi now quite content to trudge along by the detective’s side, without asking further questions. She knew she would learn all in due time. The pretty little cottage which was the home of Mrs Briggs they found and went through the wooden picket gate and up to the front door. “Something tells me she won’t be glad to see us,” Wise whispered, and then they were admitted by a middle-aged woman who answered Wise’s courteous question by stating that she was Mrs Briggs. She looked amiable enough, Zizi thought, and she asked her callers to be seated in her homely but comfortable sitting-room. “I am here,” Wise began, watching her face for any expression of alarm, “to ask you a few questions about some cases you attended when you were a nurse in the Greenvale Hospital.” “Yes, sir,” was the non-committal response, but Zizi’s quick eye noticed the woman’s fingers grasp tightly the corner of her apron, which she rolled and twisted nervously. “One case, especially, was that of a Mrs Varian. You remember it?” “No,—I do not,” Mrs Briggs replied, but it was after a moment’s hesitation, and she spoke, in a low, uncertain voice. “Oh, yes, you do,” and Wise looked at her sternly. “Mrs Frederick Varian,—a lovely lady, who gave birth to a girl child, and you were her attendant.” “No; I don’t remember any Mrs Varian.” The voice was steadier now but the speaker kept her eyes averted from the detective’s face. “Your memory is defective,” he said, quietly. “Do you, then, remember a Mrs Curtis?” This shot went home, and Mrs Briggs cried out excitedly, “What do you mean? Who are you?” “You haven’t been asked anything about these people for twenty years, have you?” Wise went on. “You didn’t think you ever would be asked about them, did you? Your memory is all right,—now what have you to say——” “I have nothing to say. I remember a Mrs Curtis, but she was not my patient.” “No; Mrs Varian was your patient. But Mrs Curtis figured in the Varian case pretty largely, I should say!”