The rest was effaced.
“Baroness Grodsko,” repeated Marcel. “But her name was Anetta Vignola.”
“Ah!” said Uncle Graff; “these women change their names as easily as their dresses. She has only kept this envelope from the most incredible and imprudent carelessness. And how is it this letter, which came from Vienna a fortnight ago, is now here? It must have been forwarded under another envelope to the name and address she assumed here!”
Baudoin then remarked—
“Perhaps I may be permitted to state that the woman who called on my master on the night of the crime was addressed by him as Baronne—”
Marcel turned pale.
“True,” he murmured, in a low tone. “But what relation is there between Anetta Vignola and the Baroness Grodsko?”
“That is what we must discover, for it is the clue which may guide us through the darkness in which we are now groping. Courage, my child; if this woman is the same who has committed such infamous actions—”
“Ah! Uncle Graff, in that case I should feel no pity whatever for her.”
The uncle shook his nephew’s hand, in sympathetic approval.