anterre had sent the doctor to
England to take a certain small, black box to Miss Dexter.

Then he paused.

"I told Sir Edmund how our Florentine detective, Pietrino, had made
friends with one of the nurses, and that she described Madame Danterre
ordering the box to be opened and having a seizure--a heart
attack--while the letters were spread out on her bed. Nurse Edith said
then that she had put them back in a hurry and locked the box, and that
it had not been reopened by Madame Danterre. Some weeks later when she
was near her end, Madame Danterre had a scene with Dr. Larrone which
ended in his consenting to take the box to London as soon as she was
dead, but the nurse was sure that the doctor was told nothing as to the
contents of the box. That was as much as we knew up to Easter, and while
waiting for the arrival of Akers, and Stock, the other private who had
witnessed the signature. They got here in Easter week, and I saw them
with Sir Edmund, and we both cross-questioned them closely. Akers's
evidence is beyond suspicion, and is perfectly supported by that of
Stock. He described all that happened at the witnessing of the General's
signature most circumstantially, but, of course, he knew nothing of the
contents of the paper. But now I have more important evidence than any
we have had so far, and the extraordinary thing is that Sir Edmund does
not wish to hear it. I cannot understand why!"

Rose remained silent. She was looking fixedly at a paper-knife which she
held in her hand.

It suddenly struck the lawyer as a flash of most embarrassing light
that possibly there was some complication of a dangerous and tender kind
between Sir Edmund and his cousin. He could not dwell on such a notion
now--it might be absolute nonsense, but it made him go on hastily:

"I have had a visit from Nurse Edith, and as Pietrino suspected, she
knows much more than she would allow to him. I think she was waiting to
see if money would be offered for her information, but Pietrino would
not fall into the risk of buying evidence. He waited; she was watched
until she came to London, and she had not been here twenty-four hours
before she came to me. She declares now that, as she was gathering up
the papers, she had seen that the long letter Madame Danterre had been
reading when she had the attack of faintness was written to some one
called Rose. She knew it was that letter which had done the mischief.
She slipped it into her pocket when sh