She smiled faintly.
“To me,” she said, “it is terrible. My only desire is to tell you and have finished with it. You remember, when I was here last, you told me that it was your firm belief that somewhere behind the hand which murdered Hamilton Fynes and poor Dicky stood the shadow of Prince Maiyo.”
“I remember it perfectly,” he answered.
“You were right,” Penelope said.
The Ambassador drew a little breath. It was staggering, this, even if expected.
“I have talked with the Prince several times since our conversation,” Penelope continued. “So far as any information which he gave me or seemed likely to give me, I might as well have talked in a foreign language. But in his house, the day before yesterday, in his own library, hidden in a casket which opened only with a secret lock, I found two things.”
“What were they?” the Ambassador asked quickly.
“A roll of silken cord,” Penelope said, “such as was used to strangle poor Dicky, and a strangely shaped dagger exactly like the picture of the one with which Hamilton Fynes was stabbed.”
“Did he know that you found them?” Mr. Blaine-Harvey asked.
“He was with me,” Penelope answered. “He even, at my request, opened the casket. He must have forgotten that they were there.”