“You are not the man who was here earlier in the day,” Laverick remarked. “I wonder,” he continued, with a sudden inspiration, “whether you are not Mr. Bellamy’s servant?”
“That is so, sir. Mr. Bellamy has sent me here to see that no one has access to Mademoiselle Idiale.”
“Then there is no harm whatever in taking in my card,” Laverick declared convincingly. “You can put that note in your pocket. I am perfectly certain that Mademoiselle Idiale will see me, and that your master would wish her to do so.”
“I will take the risk, sir,” the man decided, “but the orders I have received were stringent.”
He disappeared and was gone for several moments. When he came back he was accompanied by a pale-faced woman dressed in black, obviously a maid.
“Monsieur Laverick,” she said, “Mademoiselle Idiale will receive you. If you will come this way?”
She opened the door of the little reception-room, and Laverick followed her. The man returned to his place in the hall.
“Madame will be here in a moment,” the maid said. “She will be glad to see you, but she has been very badly frightened.”
Laverick bowed sympathetically. The woman herself was gray-faced, terror-stricken.
“It is Monsieur Lassen, the manager of Madame, who has caused a great deal of trouble here,” she said. “Madame never trusted him and now we have discovered that he is a spy.”