“Well, yes, sir. My lady was careless once or twice that way, though it was only the address I could make out. I believe she was always very careful to post those private letters herself.”
“And you had tracked her to the place?”
“Yes, sir, a good many times—usually at night. I nearly always knew when she was going; it would be on Mam’selle Périer’s evening out, or when my lady sent her to a theatre, as she often did.”
“Well, go on.”
“I found out quite a lot one way and another about Mr. Melikoff and the Russians who used to go there, and the old Italian gentleman. It wasn’t my business, of course, and I don’t quite know why I did it, for I had no real grudge against my lady, except that I knew how my master doted on her, so to speak, and I felt she was not doing the right thing by him.
“And now I made up my mind all in a moment to go there and see if I could find out anything. I didn’t ask Sir Robert. I thought I would risk him missing me, as I’d often done before, and it wasn’t necessary for me to tell Mr. Jenkins or anyone else. I took the train, and just got to the corner of the square when, sure enough, I saw my lady herself cross the road to go into that post office. I knew it quite well, having been in and out several times when I’d happened to be in the neighbourhood.
“I followed her sharp, and peeped in. My lady was standing at the counter, and there was no one else in the shop but the person behind it, who had her back turned getting a telephone call. I went straight through—neither of them saw or heard me—passed the telephone-booth and turned to the right by the foot of some stairs and the side door. There was another door farther on half open, leading into a scullery.”
Cummings-Browne nodded. He knew—so did Snell—how accurate the description was to the last detail.
“I don’t quite know what I meant to do. I think it was to snatch her bag as she went into the booth and make a run for it. But—I had this in my pocket.”
He opened the cigar-box, took out an article that looked like the haft of a small dagger, of some dull metal elaborately chased, and held it up to view. There was a click, and out of the haft sprang a slender, vicious-looking little blade, some four inches long. Snell involuntarily put out his hand as if to seize Thomson’s arm, but the latter, having exhibited the weapon, pressed the spring again, causing the blade to disappear, and laid the thing on the table.