“You heard what part I suggested for the Baroness von Tulken in the tableau. She would know how to play the part to the life.”
She sat up suddenly and faced me, her features flushed and her eyes eager.
“How do you think you know this?”
“I don’t think. I know. The scheme was laid here in Belgrade, and the men who carried it out were hired and paid by the Duke Barinski. I can produce the men who will identify him.”
“It can’t be. How did you learn it?”
“Money; and the aid of a staunch friend of yours.”
“A friend of mine?”
“Karasch.”
“Karasch? Karasch.” She repeated the name in a tone of reminiscence, very gentle and low, and putting her hand to her eyes sat back as if in dismay or pleasure at the associations connected with it. But a moment afterwards the emotion, whether pleasure or pain, passed, and her face, as she took her hand from it and sat up again, was colder and sterner than I had ever seen it.
“And you connect the Baroness with this?”