She rose and walked to the window, and they saw her furtively drying her eyes.... After a pause she said in a firmer tone:
"I am given to understand you did not hand me over to the police because you wanted to give me an opportunity to explain first. What I tell you now I could not have said before those officials. I came here with the object of getting back from Victor and Christian Dreyel the two wooden dolls given them by my father."
"My dear young lady," replied Wallion, surprised, "we have been aware of that all along, and why wouldn't you give this simple explanation before the officials?"
"Because I am so afraid of those dolls."
"Afraid?"
"Yes, because I can't make out what they are intended for," she said almost inaudibly.
Maurice Wallion leapt from, his chair. "You don't know? You? You don't know the secret of those wooden figures for which men have risked their lives and which have apparently vanished into space.... You don't know what the numbers mean, nor what 'King Solomon' is supposed to stand for?"
"No," she replied, and when Wallion, leaning over the table, looked inquiringly into her eyes, she gently added: "I swear that I know nothing."
Wallion stood motionless as if he had received a blow; he fumbled about in his pockets for a cigar and growled: "Nobody seems to know anything—it is inconceivable—neither Dreyel nor you ... and yet that dread of the wooden dolls ... that unreasonable terror." He took sundry whiffs and then in an off hand manner he asked: "And who is Toroni?"
Elaine did not seem to have heard his question; she was leaning out of the window, gazing down the street with wide open eyes. Presently a look of doubt and confusion cast a shadow over her face. She drew back hastily and walked into the room with uncertain steps, gave a shy glance round and said in a totally altered tone: "Don't ask me any more questions, it is no use."