Nothing could spoil the azure mystery of Inspiration Point: nothing could dim the brightness of the Bridal Veil, seen from a new point of view. So near that a strong wind might have driven the spray into their faces, they saw the white folds of the waterfalls, embroidered with rainbows, and the dark rocks behind its rushing flood, stained deep red, and gold and blue, as if generations of rainbows had dried there. Nothing could stifle the thrill of that wild drive, down steep roads that tied themselves ribbonlike, round the mountain-side, and seemed to flutter, as ribbons might flutter, over precipices. Yet the magic of four days ago was dead. Carmen, sitting between Nick and Angela, had killed it. Neither rivers nor trees sang their old song; and the white witch of the Bridal Veil had turned her face away. XXVII SIMEON HARP Nick's detective in San Francisco had no news; at all events no news with which he could be induced to part. "Wait a few days longer," he said. "That's the only favour I ask. Maybe by that time we shall both know where the poison-oak came from, who posted the box, who sent it, and why, and all the rest there is to know." "Haven't you any suspicions yet?" Nick asked impatiently. "I don't go so far as to say that." "What--that you have, or you haven't?" "That I haven't." "You mean you do suspect some one?" "Well, my mind's beginning to hover." "Tell me where." "No. I won't tell you that, Mr. Hilliard." "You won't----" "Not while I'm hovering. Not till there's something to light on. I may be doing an innocent person a big injustice." And Nick could squeeze no more hints from Max Wisler. Herein lay one secret of the man's success; he had his own methods, and no one could persuade or bribe him to depart from them. This caused him to be respected. And Nick had to leave San Francisco with Mrs. Gaylor and Angela, tingling with unsatisfied curiosity. Mrs. May had forbidden him to speak to Carmen of the mysterious box, having grown sensitive on the subject. More than once she had asked herself if it were possible that some one very, very far away--some one whose photograph was in the _Illustrated London News_--hated her enough to do her an injury: some one she had believed to be completely indifferent in these days. The thing savoured of the Latin mind, she could not help thinking, rather than the Anglo-Saxon. Perhaps Princess di Sereno was not quite forgotten in Italy, after all. And Mrs. May could imagine a motive, for in San Francisco she had been able to find a duplicate of that illustrated paper. There were three photographs in it: one rather bad one of herself, taken years ago in Rome; one of Paolo, dressed as an aeronaut; and one of a certain handsome young woman, very becomingly dressed to accompany the Prince for a flight in his new aeroplane.