'Bring them down, my dear,' I said, gently patting her head with my hand. In the interests of justice, I thought it best not to frighten her.
Dolly brought them down. They seemed to me poor things, yet well worth trying. We found it possible, on further confabulation, by the simple aid of a pair of scissors, so to cut each in two that all trace of Amelia and Isabel was obliterated. Even so, however, I judged it best to call Charles and Dr. Beddersley to a private consultation in the library with Dolly, and not to submit the mutilated photographs to public inspection by their joint subjects. Here, in fact, we had five patchy portraits of the redoubtable Colonel, taken at various angles, and in characteristic unstudied attitudes. A child had outwitted the cleverest sharper in Europe!
The moment Beddersley's eye fell upon them, a curious look came over his face. 'Why, these,' he said, 'are taken on Herbert Winslow's method, Miss Lingfield.'
'Yes,' Dolly admitted timidly. 'They are. He's—a friend of mine, don't you know; and—he gave me some plates that just fitted my camera.'
Beddersley gazed at them steadily. Then he turned to Charles. 'And this young lady,' he said, 'has quite unintentionally and unconsciously succeeded in tracking Colonel Clay to earth at last. They are genuine photographs of the man—as he is—without the disguises!'
'They look to me most blotchy,' Charles mur-
