"Andrew!"
"I speak as I feel!"
"Leave me out of the question. It is Phyllis Poynton you will harm. I see that your friend is listening, and Mademoiselle is impatient. Make your excuses for ten minutes, Andrew. You will never regret it."
The detective, who had evidently overheard everything, stepped back to them.
"You will excuse my interfering, sir," he said, "but if this case is to remain in my hands at all it is necessary for me to hear all that Sir George Duncombe has to say. The young lady will wait for a moment. This case is difficult enough as it is, what with the jealousy of the French police, who naturally don't want us to find out what they can't. If Sir George Duncombe has any information to give now," the man added with emphasis, "which he withheld a few minutes ago, I think that I ought to hear it from his own lips."
"I agree entirely with what Mr. Lloyd has said," Andrew declared.
Duncombe shrugged his shoulders. He looked around him cautiously, but they were in a corner of the entresol, and no one was within hearing distance.
"Very well," he said. "To save you from danger, and Miss Poynton from further trouble, I am going to break a confidence which has been reposed in me, and to give you the benefit of my own surmises. In the first place, Mr. Lloyd is mistaken in supposing that the French police have been in the least puzzled by this double disappearance. On the contrary, they are perfectly well aware of all the facts of the case, and could have produced Miss Poynton or her brother at any moment. They are working not for us, but against us!"
"Indeed!" Mr. Lloyd said in a tone of disbelief. "And their object?"
"Here is as much of the truth as I dare tell you," Duncombe said. "Guy Poynton whilst on the Continent became the chance possessor of an important State secret. He was followed to France by spies from that country—we will call it Germany—and the young lady who awaits you so impatiently is, if not one of them, at least one of their friends. At the Café Montmartre he gave his secret away to people who are in some measure allied with the secret service police of France. He was kidnapped by them, and induced to remain hidden by a trick. Meanwhile diplomacy makes use of his information, and foreign spies look for him in vain. His sister, when she came to search for him, was simply an inconvenience which these people had not contemplated. She was worked upon by fears concerning her brother's safety to go into hiding. Both have been well cared for, and the report of Guy's death is, I firmly believe, nothing but an attempt to lull the anxieties of the spies who are searching for him. This young woman here may be able to tell you into whose hands he has fallen, but you may take my word for it that she is in greater need of information than you are, and that she is an exceedingly dangerous person for you to discuss the Poyntons with. There are the crude facts. I have only known them a few hours myself, and there is a good deal which I cannot explain. But this I honestly and firmly believe. Neither you nor I nor Mr. Lloyd here can do the slightest good by interfering in this matter. For myself, I am leaving for England to-night."