English, altogether a wrong person to attempt such a journey alone, got into bad hands at the very beginning. I believe that, instead of meeting this person who was to have befriended her, and who must have been a man of standing and respectability, or the old grandmother would not have sent her to him, she fell into the hands of a scoundrel, and was lured into your train for Cornwall."
"You must remember that Paddington Station is some miles from Charing Cross," said Heathcote. "The girl could not be smuggled from one train to the other unawares. She must have traversed half London on foot, or in a conveyance of some kind."
"Possibly. But, as likely as not, she was in the companionship of the wrong man. Consider her ignorance, her helplessness. What an easy prey for a villain!"
Heathcote was unconvinced.
"I cannot imagine a crime so motiveless as that which you suggest," he said thoughtfully.
He began to lose faith in the old sleuthhound. He began to think that Félix Drubarde was worn-out; that scent, and pace, and tongue were things of the past. He began to think that the work of finding the link between the two crimes must be done by himself rather than by Drubarde.
"What became of the girl's bag?" asked Drubarde, after he had eaten a liberal portion of veal and spinach. "There is no mention of a bag in your newspaper."
"There was no bag found. If there had been, the victim might have been identified earlier."
"And the sealed packet?"
"There was no packet. There was nothing but a little basket containing a few cherries and a biscuit-bag. There was no clue to identity. The murderer had done his work well."
"The best thing you can do is to put Mr. Distin in possession of the details you heard from Mademoiselle Beauville. He can make inquiries at the Charing Cross Station, where it is just possible the girl may be remembered by some of the porters. A girl travelling alone, and meeting a gentleman on the platform. The meeting may have been observed even there, where hundreds meet and part every hour. Railway officials are observant and keen-witted. It is within the limits of the possible that this poor girl may not have passed altogether unremarked."
"I will write to Distin this afternoon," said Heathcote. "And there is another thing I can do. If your theory is correct, Léonie Lemarque missed the person who was to have met her at the station, and fell into bad hands. If that is so, the fact ought to be arrived at easily by an appeal to the person whom she should have met."
He took out his pencil and pocket-book, and wrote the rough draft of an advertisement:
