Larralde gave a short laugh and shrugged his shoulders.
‘Heaven only knows where the letter is now,’ he answered. Julia unfolded a note and handed it to him. She had received it three weeks earlier from Concepçion Vara, and it was from Conyngham, saying that he had left her note at the house of the Colonel.
‘The Colonel was dead before Conyngham arrived at Xeres,’ said Larralde shortly. ‘And I do not believe he ever left the letter. I suspected that he had kept it as a little recommendation to the Christinos under whom he takes service. It would have been the most natural thing to do. But I have satisfied myself that the letter is not in his possession.’
‘How?’ asked Julia with a sudden fear that blanched her face.
Larralde smiled in rather a sickly way and made no answer. He turned and looked down the avenue.
‘I see Father Concha approaching,’ he said; ‘let us go towards the house.’
CHAPTER XIV
A WEIGHT OF EVIDENCE
‘The woman who loves you is at once your detective and accomplice.’
The old priest was walking leisurely up the avenue towards the Casa Barenna when the branches of a dwarf ilex were pushed aside, and there came to him from their leafy concealment, not indeed a wood-nymph, but Señora Barenna, with her finger at her lips.
‘Hush!’ she said; ‘he is here.’