“Yes.”
“It becomes obvious at once,” continued Dr. Lytton, “that Floria is not a myth. Miss Ballau risks detection to destroy notes this Floria has written. Why does she do this? Ah, how easily the answer comes. To protect this Floria. Yes, it’s been obvious from the first that Miss Ballau knows a great deal either about the murder itself or the incidents surrounding it.
“To be brief, Julien, the girl knows who killed her stepfather and, knowing it, she is going to all lengths to hide the facts from the police. She will even allow herself to be suspected of the crime and the motives, which must nauseate her, in order to have the murder fastened on her ... for the time.”
“Yes,” whispered De Medici softly. His hands moved restlessly in his lap.
“So what do we discover?” exclaimed the doctor. “Merely a very simple thing. Miss Ballau is sacrificing her liberty and reputation to protect someone. And, mind you, this someone murdered a man of whom she was very fond and to whom she owed her success in life.”
“You have ... a conclusion?” De Medici asked softly.
“Not a conclusion,” Dr. Lytton laughed. “An inevitability. Whom does she protect? Her mother. The thing answers itself. Her mother, of course. Miss Ballau is trying to save her mother from being arrested for the murder of Victor Ballau. And Miss Ballau’s mother is the Floria who baffles us. And I think if we caught a train tonight we would find this Floria hidden away somewhere in Rollo, Maine.”
“Will you go?” De Medici asked gently.
“And you?”
Dr. Lytton fixed his excited eyes on his friend.