Steinmetz passed his broad hand over his forehead as if dazed.
“And who sold them?” he asked.
“His wife.”
Count Lanovitch was looking at the burner of the lamp. There was a peculiar crushed look about the man, as if he had reached the end of his life, and was lying like a ship, hopelessly disabled in smooth water, where nothing could affect him more.
Steinmetz scratched his forehead with one finger, reflectively.
“Vassili bought them,” he said; “I can guess that.”
“You guess right,” returned Lanovitch quietly.
Steinmetz sat down. He looked round as if wondering whether the room was very hot. Then with a large handkerchief he wiped his brow.
“You have surprised me,” he admitted. “There are complications. I shall sit up all night with your news, my dear Stipan. Have you details? Wonderful—wonderful! Of course there is a God in heaven. How can people doubt it—eh?”
“Yes,” said Stipan Lanovitch quietly. “There is a God in heaven, and at present he is angry with Russia. Yes, I have details. Sydney Bamborough came to stay at Thors. Of course he knew all about the Charity League—you remember that. It appears that his wife was waiting for him and the papers at Tver. He took them from my room, but he did not get them all. Had he got them all you would not be sitting there, my friend. The general scheme he got—the list of committee names, the local agents, the foreign agents. But the complete list of the League he failed to find. He secured the list of subscribers, but learned nothing from it because the sums were identified by a numeral only, the clue to the numbers being the complete list, which I burned when I missed the other papers.”