Karl merely shrugged his shoulders and said:
"The fool!"
"Yes, he never knew how to look after himself," added the major,
completing the funeral oration. "Take his pocketbook from him, Karl. He
used to carry it in an inside pocket of his woolen waistcoat."
The spy stooped and, presently, said:
"It's not there, _Excellenz_."
"Then he put it somewhere else. Look in the other pockets."
Karl did so and said:
"It's not there either."
"What! This is beyond me! Rosenthal never parted with his pocketbook. He
used to keep it to sleep with; he would have kept it to die with."
"Look for yourself, _Excellenz_."
"But then . . . ?"
"Some one must have been here recently and taken the pocketbook."
"Who? Frenchmen?"
The spy rose to his feet, was silent for a moment and then, going up to
the major, said in a deliberate voice:
"Not Frenchmen, _Excellenz_, but a Frenchman."
"What do you mean?"
"_Excellenz_, Delroze started on a reconnaissance not long ago with his
brother-in-law, Bernard d'Andeville. I could not get to know in which
direction, but I know now. He came this way. He must have explored the
ruins of the lighthouse and, seeing some dead lying about, turned out
their pockets."
"That's a bad business," growled the major. "Are you sure?"
"Certain. He must have been here an hour ago at most. Perhaps," added
Karl, with a laugh, "perhaps he's here still, hiding in some hole.
. . ."
Both of them cast a look around them, but mechanically; and the movement
denoted no serious fear on their part. Then the major continued,
pensively:
"After all, that bundle of letters received by our agents, letters
without names or addresses to them, doesn't matter so much. But the
photograph is more important."
"I should think so, _Excellenz_! Why, here's a photograph taken in 1902;
and we've been looking for it, therefore, for the last twelve years. I
manage, after untold efforts, to discover it among the papers which
Comte Stéphane d'Andeville left behind at the outbreak of war. And this
photograph, which you wanted to take back from the Comte d'Andeville, to
whom you had been careless enough to give it, is now in the hands of
Paul Delroze, M. d'Andeville's son-in-law, Élisabeth d'Andeville's
husband and your mortal enemy!"
"Well, I know all that," cried the major, who was obviously annoyed.
"You needn't rub it in!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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