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 was not elaborate but it was effective. It consisted only of the well-made and perfectly fitting wig of long black hair, the large and heavy-rimmed glasses and two gold caps for his eye teeth. With these he was sufficiently changed in appearance for his purpose.”

“Those things couldn’t really disguise him.”

“Not from you or from any one who knew him. But he didn’t need that. All he wanted was a different personality for the artist that should in no way resemble the real Andrew Barham. He never expected to meet the same people in his two separate walks of life. And so, he went his way in his Fifth Avenue surroundings, and occasionally, when he chose, he went away, down to Washington Square for a day or two. His frequent absences from the studio, and also, from his Barham home, are thus explained.”

“I can’t take it in. Hid his wife know of this?”

“Most certainly not. No one knew it. But, to my mind, it was a suspicion of it that made Mrs. Barham go down there that night to find out.”

“Mr. Lane, I don’t believe a word of all this! I can’t believe it! You are carried away with it all as a theory, and you are trying to make things prove up. But it’s too preposterous—too incredible”

“Wait a minute, Mr. Nelson, how about this? In Mr. Barham’s desk drawer, the one at his right hand, as he usually sits, I found concealed under some papers, the small picture of Miss Cutler that disappeared from the studio that night of the reappearance of Locke.”

And then Nick Nelson remembered how Barham had continually fumbled in that drawer on certain occasions when Nelson had been there. Was the man in love with Pearl Jane? Was he really Locke? Nelson’s brain seemed to spin around.