were the pasted fragments, he handed it to the Servitor,
watching him closely with narrowing eyes. Without a tremor the paper was
received, examined, read, and handed back to Sobieska with a smile.

"Well, Excellency?"

"Ever see that before, Josef?"

"I think so, Excellency. Did you find them in my room?" he inquired with
quiet effrontery.

"They were found there. I found them," replied Sobieska coolly, not yet
despairing of breaking down the impassive wall with which Josef had
surrounded his thoughts.

"Then I have seen them before," the Servitor answered as though
courteously acknowledging an irrefutable logic. "I took them there to
interpret them," he said as if willing to make an explanation though not
admitting any necessity. "I found them beneath a certain window last
night--in the courtyard of the inn," he concluded with a significant
glance at Carter. Then boldly his eyes challenged both men.

"It's a lie," said Carter contemptuously. Josef smiled.

"Your word--the word of a stranger--against mine," he sneered. "Shall I
appeal to Her Highness?"

"Her Highness knows everything," hazarded Sobieska. "From Johann," he
added deliberately.

There was a start, if you call the slightest flicker of the eyelids
such--to show that the shot had told; then Josef, calm as before,
inquired,

"Then of what interest can these scraps of paper be?"

"Be careful, Josef," interrupted Carter, whose anger had not yet been
appeased, "that you do not pick up something deadly--in the courtyard of
the inn, something like a revolver bullet."

The fellow bowed mockingly to the last speaker, then turning to Sobieska
said, "May I go, Excellency?" Sobieska nodded assent.

"Wait," said Carter, and Josef paused.

"You say you found these papers--in the courtyard of the inn," said
Carter endeavoring to connect the man with the mishap to the auto, "any
place near the carriage shed?"

The Servitor smiled and assumed a non-committal aloofness.

"Why," he asked as, turning, he left the room.

Following a short talk with the Minister of Private Intelligence, Carter
took his departure, and, as he rode thoughtfully back to the inn, he was
startled to see a distraught Carrick arise from a stone by the highway.

"Why, Carrick," he cried with a premonitive feeling of some new evil,
"what brings you here?"

"Been huntin' for you for nearly three hours, sir. I could not bide
there, sir, till I 'ad seen you."

Carter, dismounting,