"There," Eric gave a satisfied grunt. The brothers stood looking at Suzanne, who seemed asleep. Her golden dress glimmered in the candle-light and the pearls were slipping from her dark hair. The Medici boots lay in a limp and bloody heap in a corner, where Eric had flung them. "When she awakes, I shouldn't tell her about any of this, if I were you, John." "There are things you haven't told me, Eric, aren't there? Things about--the Medici boots?" Eric looked steadily at his brother. "Yes, old fellow; and after I've told you, those boots must be destroyed. We'll burn them before this night is over. We mustn't move her now. We'll go out on the terrace--it's wet there, but the air is fresh. Did you smell--something peculiar?" For, as they passed the corner where the Medici boots lay slashed and bloody, Eric could have sworn that there came to him a horrid odor, fetid, hotly offensive--the odor of iniquity and ancient bloody death. * * * * *