"Well, and if--I believe you? Herr Markov helped our birds to escape?"
"We came. What could he do? Give me up to the police after all these years----?"
"But--the others--the black bag----"
A silence, and then----
"Have I not told you, Excellency, that I was sick--sleeping----?"
"You have told me many things. I shall believe what I choose. How much of this did Frau Nisko know?"
"Nothing--except that I had come to him. She did not know how. She believed that I came up the stairs. We all shared the food of two. The others went out into the streets at night and escaped----"
"With the black bag? Impossible. There is not a black suit-case in Germany that we do not know about."
He broke off suddenly and a change came into his voice.
"Come, Madame. You and I have worked together before and you have not found me ungenerous. I will make a bargain with you. Help me to find the black bag and I will give you--say--two hundred thousand marks. Ah, you are tempted? The woman who is tempted falls."