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 others of the family, obviously of the family; there was even one of Janet Clagne, taken in her best raiment by a photographic artist—so styled—at Derby. And on the walls of this dismal front-parlour there were two enlarged photographs which the detective felt sure to represent the master of the house and his wife. He examined that which he took to be of Mrs. Patello with great care—Mrs. Patello certainly bore a strong resemblance to her sister, Mrs. Clagne; perhaps they were twins, thought Wedgwood. And as far as he could judge from a three-quarter length portrait, Mrs. Patello, like Janet Clagne, was tall and spare of figure, and, in his opinion, fitted in very well with the general description of the woman in whose company Avice Mortover had left Mornington Crescent.

The detective was turning from this work of art to that which depicted a gentleman whom he conceived to be Mr. Patello when the door opened and Mr. Patello himself entered. He was the sort of man who, in the privacy of his own house, wears list slippers, a disreputable coat, and an old smoking-cap; these furnishings of his outer man were all there in company with a mild and watery eye, a furtive manner and a general air of amiable incompetence, and Wedgwood was quick to notice them, and notic-