"The regular police!" exclaimed the secret agent.
"Then you didn't get my wire. Yes, the regulars are on the job there now. The old servant is dead—died while sitting muttering over her prayer-book. It was perfectly natural, I feel sure, but the police, in view of what has already happened in the house, are going to take no chances."
The two men had gone, and Ashton-Kirk sat smoking a cigar in his big chair.
"A while ago," said he, "you said that you supposed that to-day would witness the arrest of the assassin of Dr. Morse; and I think I agreed that it would. But now——" he stopped and shook his head.
Fuller regarded him for a moment; then an expression of incredulity came upon his face.
"By George!" cried he. "Surely you can't mean that——"
"I mean that it is too late," interrupted Ashton-Kirk. He drew at the cigar reflectively for a space and then continued: "The thing as far as I could learn happened this way:
"One day while still at Sharsdale, Nanon, in turning over her employer's belongings, came upon the scapular given him by Colonel Drevenoff. She was horrified at the thought of so holy an emblem being in the possession of such a blasphemer, and at once all sorts of reasons for his having it occurred to her. She had perhaps heard of the Black Mass, and fancied no doubt that she had come upon evidence of some such another sacrilege. She quietly took the scapular, therefore, and hid it."
"And she never told him?"