"What makes you say that, Natalie? Josef certainly told me they had gone on with their journey."
"He told me that they were locked up. I saw the auto not five minutes before coming here. It's under sentry in the courtyard."
"Surely, Natalie, you are mistaken, dear? Josef would not tell me a deliberate untruth." Carter felt a strong desire to see and expose this Josef who held such an exalted place in the confidence of Her Grace of Schallberg. Symptoms threatening a tiff were evident in the Lady Natalie's voice.
"Really, Your Grace," she said with dignity, "am I to understand that you'd take his word before mine?"
"Your Grace?—what nonsense! Between you and me! Don't pout, dear. Just think what chance Krovitch would have for a man to rule her people, and lead them in their battles if it wasn't for this same loyal, disinterested Josef? Do you wonder I hold him in such high esteem?" There was a gentle reproof in the Duchess's tones.
"But why," persisted the somewhat mollified Natalie, "did your paragon fib so to me?"
"We'll go and see now, dear. Marie has finished my hair."
The listener, assured that they would get a fair trial, arose and, with Carrick following, made his way back in the direction from which they had adventured.
There is always a difference, telepathic it may be, in a room which, then empty, has been entered and vacated by some living thing. Carter appreciated this as soon as he set his foot in the first cell on their return journey. Some one had been there since he and Carrick had come through. He glanced at the Cockney to see if he, too, had the same impression. The fellow's head was craned forward, as one who strives to catch an elusive sound.
"I was sure I 'eard something in there, Mr. Carter," he whispered, responding to the visual question, as he nodded his head toward the doorway beyond them. Carter listened intently. It might have been an atom broken from silence; he was not positive that he had really heard anything, but he was convinced that the silence had not been unbroken. They moved cautiously to the door and peered guardedly around its frame.