"Ease your mind upon that subject. I have no intention of going near Clavering Close, nor yet of sending anybody there. Another thing: I have not, thus far, unearthed even the ghost of a thing that could be said to connect Lady Clavering with the crime. Do you want me to tell you the truth? It is you against whom all suspicions point the strongest; and I want you to go away to-night simply that I may know if you have spoken the truth, or are an accomplished actor and a finished liar!"
"What's that? Good Lord! how can my disappearing for a night prove or disprove that?"
"Shall I tell you? Then listen. I meant at first to keep it to myself, but——" His voice dropped off; there was a second of silence, then a faint clicking sound, and a blob of light struck up full upon his face. "Look here," he said suddenly, "do you know this man?"
Clavering looked up and saw in the circle of light a face he had never seen in life before—a hard, cynical face with narrowed eyes and a thin-lipped, cruel mouth.
"No," he said, "if that is what you look like. I never saw such a man before."
"Nor this one?"
In the circle of light the features of the drawn face writhed curiously, blent, softened, altered—made of themselves yet another mask. And young Clavering, pulling himself together with a start, found himself looking again into the living countenance of Monsieur Georges de Lesparre.
"Good heavens above!" he said with a catch in his voice. "Then you were that man—you? And Mr. Narkom knew all the time?"
"Oui, m'sieur—to both questions—oui. It shall again be I, mon ami; and I shall remember me last night vair well. And now since m'sieur shall haf so good a recollection of zis party—voilà! He may tell me what he remembers of this one also."
Then in a flash the face was gone, and another—changed utterly and completely—was there.