"And what of to-night?" he asked. "Stand aside, if you please!"
Jim held his ground for a moment or two, and then drew aside. He stood with his eyes closed, and such a look of misery upon his face as Betty was carried out that Hanaud attempted some clumsy word of condolence:
"This has been a bitter experience for you, Monsieur Frobisher," he began.
"Would that you had taken me into your confidence at the first!" Jim cried volubly.
"Would you have believed me if I had?" asked Hanaud, and Jim was silent. "As it was, Monsieur Frobisher, I took a grave risk which I know now I had not the right to take and I told you more than you think."
He turned away towards Moreau.
"Lock the courtyard doors and the door of the house after they have gone and bring the keys here to me."
Girardot had made a bundle of the solution, the hypodermic syringe, the tablets of cyanide, and the pieces of cord.
"There is something here of importance," Hanaud observed and, stooping at the writing-table, he picked up a square, flat-topped black case. "You will recognise this," he remarked to Jim as he handed it to Girardot. It was the case of a Corona typewriting machine; and from its weight, the machine itself was clearly within the case.
"Yes," Hanaud explained, as the door closed upon the Commissary. "This pretty room is the factory where all those abominable letters were prepared. Here the information was filed away for use; here the letters were typed; from here they were issued."