The latter smiled. “No; I thank you—what is the good in searching for something that isn’t there!”—then he turned upon Armand. “I assume you brought the box here,” pointing to the table, “and that you found it in the vault, where it is always kept—may I inquire how you got into the vault?”
“Through the door,” said the Archduke dryly.
“Then you know the combination—something the King never told even me. Observe, my lords, the logic of opportunity!”
But Armand shook his head. “No,” said he, “I do not know the combination.”
And Lotzen, seeing suddenly the pit that yawned for him if he pursued farther, simply smiled incredulously and turned away.
The old Count, however, saw it too, and had no mind to let the opportunity slip.
“Who opened the door?” he asked bluntly.
“Her Royal Highness the Princess,” said the Archduke.
And Epping nodded in undisguised satisfaction; while Ferdinand of Lotzen, sauntering nonchalantly over to the nearest window, cursed him under his breath for a meddler and a fool.
As the Duke had predicted, the search of the King’s apartments and the vault proved barren; and then, his particular servants and such attendants as were in the Palace were summoned and examined, and also without result; indeed none of them remembered having seen either box or Book—save one: Adolph, Frederick’s valet. He said that, recently, his master had spent many hours in the evenings studying the Laws, going through them with great care, making notations and marking certain pages with slips of paper; that no one else was ever present at such times, and once, when he had unthinkingly approached the desk, the King had angrily bade him leave the room. Asked when he had last seen the Book, he answered the fourth day before His Majesty’s demise; which, he added, he felt sure was also the last time it had been used; but admitting, frankly, when pressed by the Archduke, that his only reason for so thinking was that he had not seen it in that interval.