"Well, sir, yesterday one of my
friends, Badiarinos by name, and his niece Dolores, wishing to explore
the new land after the convulsions of the morning, discovered, in the
harbour, amid the ruins, a narrow channel which communicated with the
sea and was still free at that moment. A man who was getting into a
boat offered to take my friend and his niece along with him. After
rowing for some time, they saw several large wrecks and landed.
Badiarinos left his niece in the boat and went off in one direction,
while their companion took another. An hour later, the latter returned
alone, carrying an old broken cash-box with gold escaping from it.
Seeing blood on one of his sleeves, Dolores became alarmed and tried
to get out of the boat. He flung himself upon her and, in spite of her
desperate resistance, succeeded in tying her up. He took the oars
again and turned back along the new coast-line. On the way, he decided
to get rid of her and threw her overboard. She had the good luck to
fall on a sandbank which became uncovered a few minutes later and
which was soon joined to the mainland. For all that, she would have
been dead if you had not released her."

"Yes," murmured Simon, "a Spaniard, isn't she? Very beautiful. . . . I
saw her again at the casino."

"We spent the whole evening," continued the Indian, in the same
impassive tones, "hunting for the murderer, at the meeting in the
casino, in the bars of the hotels, in the public-houses, everywhere.
This morning we began again . . . and I came here, wishing also to
bring you the coat which you had lent to my friend's niece."

"It was you, then? . . ."

"Now, on entering the corridor upon which your room opens, I heard
someone groaning and I saw, a little way ahead of me--the corridor is
very dark--I saw a man dragging himself along the floor, wounded,
half-dead. A servant and I carried him into one of the rooms which are
being used for infirmary purposes; and I could see that he had been
stabbed between the shoulders . . . as my friend was! Was I on the
track of the murderer? It was difficult to make enquiries in this
great hotel, crammed with the mixed crowd of people who have come here
for shelter. At last I discovered that, a little before nine o'clock,
a lady's maid, coming from outside, with a letter in her hand, had
asked the porter for M. Simon Dubosc. The porter replied, 'Second
floor, room 44.'"

"But I haven't had that letter!" Simon remarked.

"The porter