"You--you have time to hear what my daughter has to say?" asked Wilkinson, and without waiting for an answer, he added: "I think now is the time to take it down--and----"
"Miss Wilkinson, you would know this man Ilingsworth, I suppose, if you saw him?"
"Yes," faltered Leslie, "I should know the man. But his pictures in the daily papers--I should never have known him from those."
"Just a moment, until I get his photograph," whispered the Assistant District Attorney, opening the inside door; presently he returned, closing the door again behind him, and advancing towards them he resumed confidingly: "The fact is, I've got Ilingsworth's daughter inside there. I shouldn't be surprised if she knew where the old man is, either, though she insists that she does not, and----"
"And you're practising third-degree tactics on her, I suppose," he said.
"Well, not exactly that, but persuasion--polite persuasion, that's all," explained the Assistant District Attorney, smiling. He stepped once more toward the inner door, and Leslie, obeying some hidden impulse, darted quickly to his side.
"Will you let me see her without being seen," she pleaded. "He told me all about her--her name is Elinor."
"Stand here, then," whispered Leech, and opening the door swiftly, he passed over to the window and held the girl within in conversation while he searched among his papers, and in such a manner that three-quarters of her countenance was turned toward Leslie. One glance at the pretty face of the girl was sufficient to satisfy Leslie that Elinor Ilingsworth was in great distress, and taking her place beside her father, she whispered:
"Oh, father, you should see her. She's in great trouble, and yet she looks so--so pretty." Genuine anguish shone from Leslie's eyes as she now turned from her father to Colonel Morehead, and asked:
"Who's going to take care of her? What's to become of her now?"
Leech had returned by this time and was holding before Leslie a half-tone photograph of Giles Ilingsworth.
"That's the man!" cried Leslie, seizing the picture. She turned it over and glanced involuntarily at the inscription on the back. "Taken particularly for my daughter Elinor," it said. "Affectionately her father, G. I. Sept. 190----"