Melun turned pale as ashes, and seemed to shrink in his seat.
“Good Heavens, man, what do you mean?” he cried.
Once again the men were glancing stupidly from Westerham to Melun, and back from Melun to Westerham.
“I repeat,” said Westerham, more pointedly than before, “that THEY ARE NOT WHERE THEY WERE.”
There was a long and uncomfortable pause while Melun sat rigid in his chair biting his nails.
Westerham had made a long shot, and had found the mark.
He had argued that Melun's control over the Premier was due to the illegal possession of some of Lord Penshurst's papers, though he did not know whom these papers might concern nor where Melun had placed them.
Certainly the captain had not hidden them in his own rooms, nor in the rooms of any of his confederates; for without a doubt if Lord Penshurst had not scrupled to burgle Westerham's flat, he would not scruple to ransack the houses of Melun or his friends.
Indeed, Westerham guessed that the hiding-place must be a very strange and secret one—so strange and so secret that probably only the subtle mind of Melun could have conceived it.
Thus he had come to the conclusion that it would cause Melun most terrible alarm if that individual even suspected he had an inkling of the whereabouts of the papers. Nor was he mistaken.