Had Betsy Long betrayed her? ‘I do not know what you are talking about, Mr. Torwood,’ she said at last. ‘No? I was alluding to your visit to Ladywell last night; and hoping that your late, or rather early hours, and a two miles walk at the end of it, had not disagreed with you.’ ‘Ladywell!’ gasped Belassis, with his usual insane attempt to escape from the inevitable. ‘I haven’t even been to Ladywell for weeks!’ ‘Then it must have been your double I saw,’ answered Tor. ‘A double is a nasty thing, Mr. Belassis, especially when it performs such questionable actions as yours does—stealing into people’s houses at the dead of night, in order to find and destroy legal papers of great value. I should try to rid myself of such a Doppelgänger, if I were you, or you may find it lead you into trouble some day.’ The colour had all faded from Mrs. Belassis’ face. She looked grey and ghastly. ‘Speak out!’ she said hoarsely. ‘Say at once what it is you have come for.’ ‘I have come to thank you for a very valuable discovery which you have enabled us to make.’ ‘Discovery!’ ‘Yes; the discovery of certain papers which, but for you, would without doubt have mouldered away, unknown and unsuspected, behind the woodwork of the Ladywell library. Your nocturnal attempts to discover these same papers, and your certainty of their whereabouts, enabled others with better opportunities to make the discovery you failed to do; but it is to you, and you only, that we owe the clue. Without the information you gave us, the papers would without doubt have remained for generations in their hiding-place, which has so well concealed them for eighteen years.’ ‘Papers!’ gasped Belassis; ‘what papers?’ ‘Betsy Long has betrayed us!’ exclaimed his wife, in the same breath. ‘Not at all,’ answered Tor quietly. ‘Your spy, whom you so cleverly and honourably manœuvred for me to take into my service, has been loyal to you—more loyal than such creatures generally are. I am surprised that a clever woman like you, Mrs. Belassis, should stoop to use so clumsy a tool. However, such good service has been done us by all this, that it is not for me to complain. Your spy, who has been really your servant, not ours, is coming back to you this afternoon. I wish you joy of her, after the training you have thought fit to bestow upon her. No, she has not betrayed you; make yourself quite easy on that score. You betrayed yourselves by the sounds you made, and I had the pleasure and profit of seeing and hearing a good deal that passed in the library last night. It may be a satisfaction to you to hear that the papers you were so anxious about have now been found; and you are welcome to see them for yourselves any day you wish, by coming over to Ladywell.’ Mrs. Belassis was pale with rage and dismay, her husband with abject fear. ‘What papers?’ he gasped again.