"One moment," said Perry Toat, bringing a photograph out of her
pocket. "Do you remember how I told you that I was hunting for the
hospital nurse who stole Colonel Ilse's child?"
"Yes; but what has that case to do with the matter?" asked Ralph, with
considerable impatience, as he wished to do one thing at a time.
"Look at the photograph, Mrs. Shawe, and see," said the detective.
Audrey took the photograph and looked at it hard. Then she started
back with a cry of amazement. "It is a picture of my mother!" she
gasped.
"Oh, no," said Miss Toat, easily; "you are misled by the resemblance
and by the absence of the birthmark, which does not show in the
photograph."
"I see," said Ralph, examining the picture. "This is Madame Coralie?"
"Exactly--as a hospital nurse and kidnapper!"
CHAPTER XXIII
ONE PART OF THE TRUTH
Naturally Mr. and Mrs. Shawe did not care about interrupting their
honeymoon by a visit to town, especially on an errand connected with
criminal matters. But the necessity of taking such a journey was very
great, seeing that Perry Toat assured them how the arranged interview
with Madame Coralie and her husband would probably clear up matters in
a surprising way. Apparently the detective knew much more than she was
prepared to admit, for once or twice she looked at the young couple in
an odd way. Ralph saw her stealthy glances, but did not ask her in the
presence of his wife what they meant. Warned by experience, he
hesitated to be too abrupt in his questioning. He did not know what
astonishing fact might be told.
But the young man did express surprise when he examined the photograph
of Madame Coralie. It was the woman herself without doubt, for her
face, although looking much younger, was too strongly marked to be
mistaken. She was dressed as a nurse, and looked quite pretty, as her
figure was more shapely and the garb became her. Of course, the
birthmark was not revealed by the photographic process, or if it had
been--Ralph was not sufficiently an expert to know--was eliminated
carefully, so that the subject of the portrait might appear at her
best.
"Where did you get this?" asked Ralph, when the trio walked back to
the Three Fishers to get ready for the midday journey.
"I have been hunting for it for a long time," replied Perry Toat,
replacing the photograph in her pocket, "and at length procured it
from an old servant of Colonel Ilse, who had been in the house when
Madame Coralie acted as nurse to Mrs. Ilse. She called herself Mrs.
Askew then."
"Askew, Askew!" muttered Shawe, musingly. "And her true name is
Arkwright."
"She used a false name with the same initial letter because of the
marks on her linen, no doubt," said Miss Toat. "Of course, this
portrait was taken more than twenty years ago, but there is sufficient
resemblance for me to recognise it as that of Madame Coralie."
"But as she always wears a yashmak--"