He drew the telegram from his pocket. Lytton was a man with a powerful mind, a man not to be fooled. What if he had captured the real Floria? She was someone whom Florence was trying to shield.... Again the chill dropped into De Medici’s heart. “Her mother,” he went on to himself, “Lytton’s captured her mother. And Florence expected something of the sort. Another effort to throw suspicion from the woman.... Yes, she came into my room last night. Why? Ah, it grows simple. To repeat the Ballau crime and distract suspicion from the creature in Rollo. There’s a terrible logic to the thing. Florence under a mania worse than her mother’s ... the mania of sacrifice.... A habit that undermines. The martyr obsession. She feared Dr. Lytton and, released from jail, she hurried to commit a crime so similar in its details to the one committed by the real Floria that the conclusion would be inevitable; Floria was in New York and not in Maine....” De Medici walked on, his head lowered, his eyes gleaming with despair. “We’re on the wrong track,” he announced suddenly to himself; “farcical sleuths trailing chimeras. We’ve bungled everything. There’s something else ... someone else. It’s I she suspects. Her silence, her strangeness, everything.... A ruse to protect me. The burned letter ... all part of her plan. There is no Floria.... She’s saving me from a crime she thinks I committed....” Again his thought stopped and a sigh escaped him. He had been trying to build himself against the despair that lacerated his heart. “No,” he repeated, “no. It was she last night in my room. A false attack. She didn’t mean murder. It was made merely as a gesture to establish her mother’s innocence. Hm, but I know better than that. The dagger plunged for my heart.... Too clear a memory to evade. My arm saved me.... A crazed woman. And what else? Oh, yes, the laugh. I remember.... She laughed. After the dagger had struck, she laughed.... And it was her voice. I remember now. Florence’s voice, wild and crazed, laughing over me ... after the dagger had struck....” The knowledge which overcame him sickened his thought. His face had become drawn. Fears ached in his heart. “Worthy of other days,” he whispered. “Yes, a plot out of De Medici annals. But I must find her. Unless I find her I’ll go mad myself....” He looked up and saw ahead of him the Hudson Apartments. He had, without thinking of destination, walked toward the Ballau home. “She’ll be there,” he murmured with sudden conviction. And his eyes growing excited, he walked toward the familiar entrance. CHAPTER XII THE WOMAN WITH THE CACKLING LAUGH Treasures for sale—Bidders and buyers and candlesticks—In which an old woman makes an exciting purchase—In which Julien De Medici pursues an aged Alice in Wonderland—The beginning of a story. Donovan, the doorman, greeted him. “Good morning,” he said. “There’s quite a crowd, sir.”