"Why are you sure she was not a--well--woman of the town?"
"Because, there again--there's no dame of that time either of that name or looks--neither Dubois nor Delano. Of course, they come and go, but there's every reason to think she stayed right on here in S.F. Of course, I've only had twenty-four hours--I'll find out in another twenty-four just what conspicuous women of fifteen to twenty years ago measure up to what she must have looked like--I got the Mother Superior to describe her minutely: nearly six feet, clear dark skin with a natural red color--no make-up; very small features, but well made--nose and mouth I'm talking about. The eyes were a good size, very black with rather thin eyelashes. Lots of black hair. Stunning figure. Rather large ears and hands and feet. She always dressed in black, the handsomest sort. They generally do."
"Well?" asked Ruyler through his teeth. He had no doubt the woman was his mother-in-law. "The Jameses? What of them?"
"That's the snag. Rest is easy in comparison. Innumerable Jameses must have died about that time, to say nothing of all the way along the line, but while some of the records were saved in 1906, most went up in smoke. Moreover, there's just the chance that he didn't die here. But that's going on the supposition that the man died when she left California, which don't fit our theory. I still think he died not so very long before her return to California, and that she probably came to collect a legacy he had left her. Otherwise, I should think it's about the last place she would have come to. I put a man on the job before I left of collecting the Jameses who've died since the fire. Here they are."
"James Hogg, bookkeeper--races, of course. James Fowler, saloon-keeper. James Despard, called 'Frenchy,' a clever crook who lived on blackmail--said to have a gift for getting hold of secrets of men and women in high society and squeezing them good and plenty--"
He paused. "Of course, that might be the man. There are points. I'll have his life looked into, but somehow I don't believe it. I have a hunch the man was a higher-up. The sort of woman the Mother Superior described can get the best, and they take it. To proceed: James Dillingworth, lawyer, died in the odor of sanctity, but you never can tell; I'll have him investigated, too. James Maston--I haven't had time to have had the private lives of any of these men looked into, but I knew some of them, and Maston, who was a journalist, left a wife and three children and was little, if any, over thirty. James Cobham, broker--he was getting on to fifty, left about a million, came near being indicted during the Graft Prosecutions, and although his wife has been in the newspapers as a society leader for the last twenty years, and he was one of the founders of Burlingame, and then was active in changing the name of the high part to Hillsboro when the swells felt they couldn't be identified with the village any longer, and he handed out wads the first of every year to charity, there are stories that he came near being divorced by his haughty wife about fifteen years ago. Of course, those men don't parade their mistresses openly like they did thirty years ago--I mean men with any social position to keep up. But now and again the wife finds a note, or receives an anonymous letter, and gets busy. Then it's the divorce court, unless he can smooth her down, and promises reform. Cobham seems to me the likeliest man, and I'm going to start a thorough investigation to-morrow. These other Jameses don't hold out any promise at all--grocers, clerks, butchers. It's the list in hand I'll go by, and if nothing pans out--well, we'll have to take the other cue she threw out and try Los Angeles."