Mr. Priestley removed his pince-nez, polished them vigorously and replaced them. “Don’t you worry about that, my dear,” he told her, with a warmth which belied the paternal turn of phrase. “I shall see to that. You have already placed yourself in my hands. And very proud and gratified I am at the trust you put in me. Indeed, I have the glimmerings of a plan already. But I must ask you to read through this perfectly extraordinary report in the _Sunday Courier_. Incredible! You’ll see it isn’t at all what you thought at first. Nothing like it. In fact, I—but read it for yourself.” He placed a chair for her by the window and gave her the paper. Laura read the two columns through. That she was able to do so and at the same time preserve a straight face she reckoned afterwards as perhaps the greatest of her histrionic feats. But apart from mirth, there was interest to help her. Obviously the conspirators had seen their way to improving the situation and, though some of the details were obscure, she had no difficulty in following the main lines. When she came to Mr. Reginald Foster’s story and recognised Dora’s handiwork it was all she could do not to give way again, but the test was successfully passed. She held the paper up for a few minutes after she had come to the end, in order to give herself a thinking-space. Clearly the others hoped that the report would reach her eyes and expected her to shape her own end of the business accordingly. But what exactly were they trying to effect, and what did they want her to do? For the moment the answers to both these questions eluded her. She dropped the paper into her lap, with a fitting expression of amazement. “You see what must have happened?” said Mr. Priestley eagerly, whose brain also had not been inactive during this period. “Your schemes must have conflicted with something else that that scoundrel had on hand. I gather he was mixed up with this criminal gang led by the Man with the Broken Nose. They found his body, which, for some obscure reason of their own, they seem to have removed, and decamped. But why did that poor girl, who seems to be an unwilling accomplice, refer to the dead man as the Crown Prince? I don’t understand that at all.” Nor, in fact, did Laura. The Crown Prince seemed to her the only flaw in an otherwise perfect case. “Perhaps,” she said, with a flash of inspiration, “perhaps that was the gang’s name for him, in the same way as they call their leader the Man with the Broken Nose.” Mr. Priestley looked his admiration. “Of course! Undoubtedly that must be it. And to think that the _Sunday Courier_ never tumbled to it! Very good, indeed, Laura, very good. And now there’s another extraordinary coincidence. You see that the report is written by a man named Doyle—R. S. P. Doyle? He’s actually a personal friend of my own.” Mr. Priestley beamed at this remarkable revelation. “_No!_” said Laura, properly impressed.