“This” was a blank sheet of notepaper, which she produced, bearing the heading of the Palace Hotel at Lisbon.
“You see,” she said, “it has been very carefully preserved, for it was enclosed in these two envelopes. I wonder why?”
I took the blank paper from her and examined it carefully. I found it to be the ordinary hotel notepaper, exactly similar to that which I myself had used in the hotel writing-room, during my recent visit to the Portuguese capital.
“Well,” I said, “I don’t see how that proves, or even suggests, anything. We know perfectly well that Madame Bohman has been to Lisbon—she herself makes no secret whatever of the fact, and she may very well have brought away by accident a sheet of the hotel notepaper and a couple of envelopes. It is true she seems friendly with both men, and there is undoubtedly some suspicion. But is it sufficient to justify action on our part, or even to give us good reason for staying here and devoting to a very trivial matter valuable time which at the moment we might be spending to much greater advantage in Paris?”
Luigi raised his dark eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders. It was obvious that he was entirely of my way of thinking, and, though he was willing to do anything to help me and to put a spoke in the wheel of the Hun plotters—for, like all patriotic Italians, he cherished the liveliest hatred for the Austro-Germans—he was no fonder than I am myself of the profitless task of chasing a will-o’-the-wisp. But the merry, go-ahead little Frenchwoman had her suspicions very thoroughly aroused, and I knew well that when this was the case it was not an easy task to allay them.
“I do not care, mon cher Gerald! There is evil work in progress, somewhere; I am confident. Why should Thornton be acquainted or have anything to do with our arch-enemy, Ernst Halbmayr? Remember how cleverly he escaped you six months ago in Rotterdam!”
“But we trapped the woman,” I rejoined grimly. “And there was a firing party at Versailles.”
“And there is somebody to be trapped here also,” persisted Madame Gabrielle. “You will surely not give up yet?”
While we were still discussing the matter a page-boy brought a telegram. Luigi took it from the lad and, dismissing him, handed the message to me. It was from Aubert in Lisbon, and it conveyed the significant news that this man Thornton had left for Lucerne, and that Garcia was travelling by the same train. “He has just sent a telegram to Syberg at the poste restante,” the message concluded.
After this, of course, there could be no question of our abandoning our task. There was evidently something afoot, and just as evidently Lucerne was likely to be the scene of some lively incidents.