"He is not so very clever then. All these months--and yet he has got no further than this!"
"How much further do you want him to go? He has the box with all your papers--your treasonable papers--your orders from Dr. Leyds. Really, Mr. van Zwieten, you should have taken a little more care of that box! The top of a press was hardly a safe place to hide it. But perhaps you had been reading Poe's story of the 'Purloined Letter.'"
"Never mind what I read," he said, evidently annoyed at her flippancy. "Let us confine ourselves to business. The idea of the disguised policeman was yours, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir, it was. I felt sure that the landlady would not let us enter your room to make the search unless she was thoroughly frightened, so I suggested that he should get himself up as a member of the force. Our little stratagem succeeded to perfection. Mrs. Hicks--that is her name, I believe--was terrified and let us in at once. Then we found your box, and I sent Wilfred away with it while I stayed and wrote my note to you. Oh, what a time we had over your papers! You really are very clever, Mr. van Zwieten. What a lot the Foreign Secretary would give to see what we saw and, as it happens, he is a personal friend of mine. I might sell it, you know," she went on coolly. "I am poor enough now, and they would give me a good price."
"Not such a price as would recompense you for what I could say about your husband," retorted the Dutchman.
She laughed gaily. "Oh, that? My good man, I know all about that! Do you think I should have taken the trouble to talk to you if I had not known that my husband had been doing all your dirty work?"
"Yes, he did my work," Van Zwieten said viciously. "He was my creature--paid by me with Transvaal gold. You call me a spy, Lady Jane Malet. Your own husband was one--and not only a spy, but a traitor!"
"I know it," she said, and her face was very pale, "and for that reason I am glad he is dead, terrible though his end was."
"I dare say you helped him out of the world!" sneered Van Zwieten.
"That is false, and you know it. I had no idea of what my husband was until I found his papers after his death. Had I known that when he was yet alive, I might have killed him!" She clenched her hand. "Yes, I might have shot him, the mean, cowardly hound! He spoke against the Boers, and yet he took their money!"