But no one was needed for a task from which all shrank, with not unnatural hesitation. While they still talked, a message was brought in to the effect that Mrs. Wilders was in the antechamber, and her first words, when one of the attachés joined her, plainly showed that she had heard of Lord Lydstone's death.
"What a horrible, frightful business!" she said, in a voice broken with emotion. "Oh! this wicked, accursed town! How did it happen? Do tell me all you know."
"We are completely in the dark. We know nothing more than that Lord Lydstone was found stabbed at daylight this morning in the streets of Stamboul."
"What could have taken him there?"
The attaché shrugged his shoulders.
"There is nothing to show, except that he was inveigled by some mysterious communication—a letter sent on board the yacht."
"Inveigled for some base purpose—robbery, perhaps?"
"Very probably. When the body was found, it had been rifled of everything—watch, money, rings: everything had gone."
Mrs. Wilders sighed deeply. It might have been a sigh of relief, but to the attaché it seemed a new symptom of horror.
"But how imprudent—how frightfully imprudent—of the poor dear lord to venture alone, and so late at night, into that vile quarter. What could have tempted him?"