"He went back into the dining-room," said Saltaur. Frobisher brought his teeth together with a click. For the moment he had quite forgotten Count Lefroy. He passed from the library and into the dining-room. Lefroy stood by the great shining table close against the fluttering pyramid of red moths, a thin-bladed knife in his hands. "And what might you be doing?" Frobisher asked softly. Lefroy smiled somewhat bitterly. He was perfectly self-possessed with the grip of the man who knows how to hold himself in hand. And he smiled none the less easily because there was murder raging in his heart. "I am cutting my nails," he said. "Oh, I’ll cut your claws for you!" Frobisher said. "Don’t do that, what will your manicure artist say? And a social superiority (feminine) tells me that you have the finest hand of any man in London. You are unhinged, my dear Count. This little affair——" "This cold-blooded murder you mean. Oh, you scoundrel!" Lefroy had dropped the mask for a moment. There was contempt, loathing, horror in the last few words. Frobisher, counting the nodding swarm of crimson moths, merely smiled. "Twenty-seven, thirty-one, thirty-nine," he said. "You haven’t stolen any of my flowers yet. Not a bad idea of yours to purloin a cluster, and send it to our tin Solomon yonder, as an earnest of good intentions later on. And why do you call me scoundrel?" "You are the most infernal villain that ever breathed." "Well, perhaps I am. It is very good of you to admit my superior claims, dear Lefroy. But I am getting old, and you may live to take my place some day. Why——" "Why did you kill Manfred?" "My dear fellow, I didn’t kill Manfred. You think he has been murdered in the ordinary sense of the word. Manfred has not been murdered, and nobody will ever be hanged for the crime. That you may take my word for. It is the vengeance of the Crimson Moth, death by visitation of God; call it what you will. And it might have been yourself." Frobisher’s whole manner had changed, his eyes were gleaming evilly as he hissed the last words warningly in Lefroy’s ear. The latter changed colour slightly. "I don’t understand what you mean," he stammered. "And yet you are not usually slow at understanding. I repeat that it might have been yourself. If you had attempted the raid of the Cardinal Moth, instead of Manfred, you would have been lying at the present moment with your head on Brownsmith’s knees, and the mark of the beast about your throat." "And if I tell those fellows yonder what you say?" "You are at liberty to say anything you please. But you are not going to say anything, my dear Lefroy; you are too fine a player for that. You are going to wait patiently for your next innings. Come back to the others. And perhaps I had better lock this door."