"Come now, no nonsense! Give it to me!"
What "it" meant he himself had no more notion than the man in the moon. His real motive was to set the terrified girl speaking, and thus lead her on to yield some chance clew on which his wits might work. But at once, like one hypnotized, Pauline Dessaulx, still keeping her eyes fixed on his face, slowly moved her right hand to a pocket, slowly drew out a little book, and slowly handed it to him.
"All right—you are wise," he said. "I'll see you again." The door slammed, and he ran down the steps, his blood tingling with the sense that he had blundered upon some tremendous discovery.
Nor was he far wrong. When in the cab he opened the book, he saw it was Rose de Bercy's diary. He did not know her handwriting, but he happened to open the book at the last written page, and the very first words his staring eyes devoured were these:
If I am killed this night, it will be by —— or by C. E. F.
Where the blank occurred it was evident that some name had been written, and heavily scratched through with pen and ink.
But the alternative suggested by the initials! C. E. F.! How grotesque, how exquisitely ludicrous! Clarke, gazing at the enigma, was suddenly shaken with a spasm of hysterical laughter.