er the
head-cushion and lifted it up gently, so that the indentations of its
surface might not be disarranged. He carried it over to the light of
the open window. The cushion was covered with silk, and as he held it
to the sunlight all could see a small brown stain.

Hanaud took his magnifying-glass from his pocket and bent his head over
the cushion. But at that moment, careful though he had been, the down
swelled up within the cushion, the folds and indentations disappeared,
the silk covering was stretched smooth.

"Oh!" cried Besnard tragically. "What have you done?"

Hanaud's face flushed. He had been guilty of a clumsiness--even he.

Mr. Ricardo took up the tale.

"Yes," he exclaimed, "what have you done?"

Hanaud looked at Ricardo in amazement at his audacity.

"Well, what have I done?" he asked. "Come! tell me!"

"You have destroyed a clue," replied Ricardo impressively.

The deepest dejection at once overspread Hanaud's burly face.

"Don't say that, M. Ricardo, I beseech you!" he implored. "A clue! and
I have destroyed it! But what kind of a clue? And how have I destroyed
it? And to what mystery would it be a clue if I hadn't destroyed it?
And what will become of me when I go back to Paris, and say in the Rue
de Jerusalem, 'Let me sweep the cellars, my good friends, for M.
Ricardo knows that I destroyed a clue. Faithfully he promised me that
he would not open his mouth, but I destroyed a clue, and his
perspicacity forced him into speech.'"

It was the turn of M. Ricardo to grow red.

Hanaud turned with a smile to Besnard.

"It does not really matter whether the creases in this cushion remain,"
he said, "we have all seen them." And he replaced the glass in his
pocket.

He carried that cushion back and replaced it. Then he took the other,
which lay at the foot of the settee, and carried it in its turn to the
window. This was indented too, and ridged up, and just at the marks the
nap of the silk was worn, and there was a slit where it had been cut.
The perplexity upon Hanaud's face greatly increased. He stood with the
cushion in his hands, no longer looking at it, but looking out through
the doors at the footsteps so clearly defined--the foot-steps of a girl
who had run from this room and sprung into a motor-car and driven away.
He shook his head, and, carrying back the cushion, laid it carefully
down. Then he stood erect, gazed about the room as though even yet he
might force its secrets out from i