Without answer Valcour stood motionless before us, only his mobile face and his white lips showing the conflict of emotions that oppressed him. And then I saw a curious thing happen. The eyelids of Mazanovitch for an instant unclosed, and in that instant so tender a glance escaped them that Valcour trembled slightly, and touched with a gentle, loving gesture the elder man’s arm.
It all happened in a flash, and the next moment I could not have sworn that my eyes had not deceived me, for Valcour turned away with a sullen frown upon his brow, and the Captain seized my arm and marched me to the door, Figgot and Marco following close behind.
Presently we regained our carriage and were driven rapidly from the morgue.
This drive was longer than the first, but during it no word was spoken by any of my companions. I could not help staring at the closed eyes of Mazanovitch, but the others, I noticed, avoided looking at him. Did he see, I wondered?—could he see from out the tiny slit that showed beneath his lashes?
We came at last to a quiet street lined with small frame houses, and before one of these the carriage stopped. Mazanovitch opened the front door with a latchkey, and ushered us into a dimly lighted room that seemed fitted up as study and office combined.
Not until we were seated and supplied with cigars did the little man speak. Then he reclined in a cushioned chair, puffed at his cheroot, and turned his face in my direction.
“Tell me all you know concerning the vault and the ring which unlocks it,” he said, in his soft tones.
I obeyed. Afterward Figgot told of my meeting with the Minister of Police, and of Paola’s orders to him and Marco to escort me to Rio and to place the entire matter in the hands of Mazanovitch.
The little man listened without comment and afterward sat for many minutes silently smoking his cheroot.
“It seems to me,” said I, at last, “that the death of Senhora de Mar, and especially the fact that her ring finger has been severed from her hand, points conclusively to one reassuring fact; that the ring has been recovered by one of our band, and so the Cause is no longer endangered. Therefore my mission to Rio is ended, and all that remains for me is to return to Cuyaba and attend to the obsequies of my poor friend de Pintra.”