"A rumour of this," Madame de Melbain continued, "reached us in Mexonia! I telegraphed to Amy! She and Louise were at their wits' ends. Louise decided to go and see this man Barnes, to make her way, if she could, into his flat, to search for and, if she could find them, to steal these letters. She carried out her purpose or rather her attempted purpose. The rest you know, for it was you who saved her!" "The man," Wrayson said hoarsely, "was murdered." Madame de Melbain inclined her head. "So I have understood," she remarked. "He was murdered," Wrayson continued in a harsh, unnatural voice, "on that very night, the night when he was to have made over these letters to your--enemies! The message was telephoned to me! He was to go to the Hotel Francis. He was warned that there was danger. And there was! He was murdered--while the cab waited--to take him there!" Her eyes held his--she did not flinch. "The man who telephoned to me--Bentham his name was, the agent of your enemies,--he, too, was murdered!" "So I have heard," she said calmly. "The letters!" he faltered. "Where are they?" "No one knows," she answered. "That is why I live always on the brink of a volcano. Many people are searching for them. No one as yet has succeeded. But that may come at any moment." "Madame," he said, "can you tell me who killed these men?" She raised her eyebrows. "I cannot," she answered coldly. "Madame," he declared, "the man Barnes was a pitiful blackmailing little Jew! For all I know, he deserved death a dozen times over--ay, and Bentham too! But the law does not look upon it like that. Whoever killed these men will assuredly be hanged if they are caught. Don't you think that your friends are a little too zealous?" She met his gaze unflinchingly. "If friends of mine have done these things," she said, "they are at least unknown to me!" He drew a short choking breath of relief. Yet even now the mystery was deeper than ever! He began to think out loud. "A friend of yours it must have been," he declared. "Barnes was murdered when in a few hours he would have parted with those letters to your enemies; Bentham was murdered when he was on the point of discovering them! There is some one working for you, guarding you, who desires to remain unknown. I wonder!" He stopped short. A sudden illumining idea flashed through his mind. He looked at Madame de Melbain fixedly. "This man Duncan who has disappeared so suddenly," he said thickly. "Whom did you say--who was it that he reminded you of?" Madame de Melbain lost at last her composure. She was white to the lips, her eyes seemed suddenly lit with a horrible dread. She pushed out her hands as though to thrust it from her. "He was killed!" she cried. "It was not he! He is dead! Don't dare to speak of anything so horrible!"