"Later," the Baron said, with a meaning look, "I will make myself clear. In the meantime, let me recommend this soufflé. Mr. Mabane, you are drinking nothing. Would you prefer your wine a shade colder?"
"Not for me," Allan declared. "I prefer champagne at its natural temperature; the wine is far too good to have its flavour frozen out of it. Apropos of what you were saying, Baron, there is one question which I should like to ask you. Why was Major Delahaye sent to St. Argueil for Isobel, and what was he supposed to do with her?"
I do not think that the Baron liked the question. He hesitated for several moments before he answered it.
"Major Delahaye was not sent," he said. "He went on his own account. He was the only person who knew the child's whereabouts."
"And what do you suppose his object was in bringing her away from the convent?" Allan persisted.
"I do not know," the Baron answered. "All I can say is that it pleases me vastly more to find the child in your keeping than in his."
"Was the man who shot him," I asked, "concerned in the child's earlier history?"
"I cannot place him at all," the Baron answered. "I should imagine that his quarrel with Major Delahaye was a personal one, and had no bearing upon the child. Few men had more enemies than Delahaye. One does not wish to speak ill of the dead, but he was a bully and a brute all his days."
A servant in plain black livery brought a sealed note to our host, and stood respectfully by his side while he read it. It obviously consisted of but a few words, yet the Baron continued to hold it in front of him for nearly a minute. Finally, he crushed it in his hand, and dismissed the servant.
"There is no answer," he said. "I shall wait upon her Highness in an hour."