The Father Hunt

"I should hope not. May I see them, please?"

He leaned over to reach down to the drawer, came up with a brown envelope, slipped two prints out, and gave them a look. They were about five by eight inches. "Until I saw these," he said, "I had forgotten how attractive she was. It must have been nineteen forty-six or forty-seven, a year or so after she came here. My God, how people change."

I had got up and circled the end of the desk, and he handed them to me. One was about three-quarters face and the other was profile. There wasn't much of her figure, not down to her waist, but they were good shots of a good face. There was some resemblance to Amy, but the forehead was a Little wider and the chin a little more pointed. I looked at the back, but there was no date or other data.

"I can't let you take them," Thorne said, "but I can have copies made. As many as you want."

I gave them another look. "They could be extremely useful. I can have copies made and return these to you."

He said no, they were the only pictures he had of a woman who had been a big help to him for many years, and he was going to hang on to them, and I handed them over. I told him I needed at least six copies, ten would be better, and returned to my chair and got out my notebook.

"Now a leading question," I said. "You'll dodge it, naturally, but I'll ask it anyway. Amy thought it might be

someone connected with her work here. Could you suggest a candidate?"

He shook his head. "You mentioned that before. I don't have to dodge. Forget it. There are forty-six people in this organization, counting everybody. Over the years there have been, oh, I suppose around a hundred and fifty. They haven't all thought Mrs. Denovo was perfect, we've had our share of scraps and grudges, but murder? Not a chance. Forget it."

Of course I was glad to, since Amy's father couldn't ^f have been one of the hundred and fifty unless Elinor had lied in the letter, and I decided it wasn't necessary to nag him just to keep up appearances. I opened the notebook. "Okay, we'll pass that for now. Now some dates. When did Mrs. Denovo start with you?"

"I looked that up the day I found the pictures. It was July second, nineteen forty-five."

"You had known her before that?"