'Then let us start our process of elimination. Out goes Viscount Stern, a lucky individual with twenty thousand acres of land, and God only knows what income. I mark off the name of Lord Templemere, one of His Majesty's judges, entirely above suspicion. Next, Sir John Sanclere; he also is rich, but Vincent Innis is still richer, so the pencil obliterates both names. Now we arrive at Angus McKeller, an author of some note, as you are well aware, deriving a good income from his books and a better one from his plays; a canny Scot, so we may rub his name from our paper and our memory. How do my erasures correspond with yours, Monsieur Valmont?'
'They correspond exactly, Mr. Dacre.'
'I am flattered to hear it. There remains one name untouched, Mr Lionel Dacre, the descendant, as I have said, of robbers.'
'I have not said so, Mr. Dacre.'
'Ah! my dear Valmont, the politeness of your country asserts itself. Let us not be deluded, but follow our inquiry wherever it leads. I suspect Lionel Dacre. What do you know of his circumstances before the dinner of the twenty-third?'
As I made no reply he looked up at me with his frank, boyish face illumined by a winning smile.
'You know nothing of his circumstances?' he asked.
'It grieves me to state that I do. Mr. Lionel Dacre was penniless on the night of the dinner.'
'Oh, don't exaggerate, Monsieur Valmont,' cried Dacre with a gesture of pathetic protest; 'his pocket held one sixpence, two pennies, and a halfpenny. How came you to suspect he was penniless?'
'I knew he ordered a case of champagne from the London representative of Camelot Frères, and was refused unless he paid the money down.'