"_Carte blanche_," said Peaches. "That means 'free hand', doesn't it? But how does that square you, Sandy dear?" "It doesn't, really," said he. "But if you'll all sit down I'll tell you just where it comes in. It's rather a long story," he added. "And my boat sails at eight o'clock." As if in a dream we did as he suggested. The duke himself stood before the open hearth, his hands clasped behind his back, his head bent in silence for a moment. Then he raised it as if shaking off some evil dream and began his extraordinary story. "In the eyes of the world I am a thief," he pronounced. "In all probability the greatest thief of our day, and what is more, the most discriminating one. You see how my taste seems to run--world-renowned paintings of almost inestimable value, rare carvings, tapestries and statues. Clumsy to handle, are they not? Frightfully difficult to dispose of. But that is not the strangest part of my predications. You will notice that all of them are of the art of a single nation--Italy." "Well," he went on, "strange as these two facts may appear, there is a stranger one still. Nothing that I take is ever missed. I make one exception to that--the Scarpia panels. I bungled that badly. And then last night--if it had not been for Markheim's brutality to you"--here Sandro's face grew livid at the recollection--"if it had not been for that interruption, when I remembered that I had left your little knife on the frame and returned to get it because I could not endure to leave behind the only souvenir I had of you--I would have got away clear. You people would have gone on living with that replica, boasting of it, perhaps, to the end of your lives, and then handing it down to posterity as a treasure of the highest order. I can assure you that there is more than one great collector in whose service I have been, or in whose house I have visited as a guest, who is doing that very thing." "But, Sandro!" cried Peaches. "What did you do it for? You couldn't sell such things? Where are they? Or are these some of them?" She indicated the contents of the room with a sweeping gesture. "These are my weapons," he said, smiling. "Replicas, all of them, to be used as the occasion rises; as I locate some treasure and plan to acquire it." "But do you sell them?" she persisted. "No," said he. "Then you keep them? You take them for yourself?" she cried incredulously. "I haven't got one of them!" he declared, "except the Madonna of the Lamp. And I'll not have her long." "But do you mean to say you use a fence?" Dicky broke in. "I do not," replied Sandro. "Every one of these paintings that I have recovered is in the hands of the Italian Government--where they all both morally and legally belong!" His voice had taken on a new tone and we looked at each other in astonishment. "Then this paper----" began Peaches.