I turned to Violet.
“I congratulate you,” I said, taking her hand, “on marrying a real man. I think the two of you are the pluckiest pair I have ever met. It will be long before I forget that incident on the roof of Château d’Uzerche. But for you, neither Frank nor I would be alive to-day.”
“Nor the Baronne, nor Dago Paulton,” she added mischievously. “Oh, yes, I am a heroine! A heroine to save such very precious lives!”
“Are you not grateful to the Baronne?” I asked quickly. “After all, she did adopt you, and bring you up.”
“Yes,” the girl answered, with a swift, reproachful glance, “she adopted me and brought me up, but only that I might help to further her own ends. She didn’t adopt me out of affection, I can assure you.”
I saw that I had again trodden upon thin ice, so I quickly changed the topic.
“But the great mystery,” I said, addressing Faulkner, “is not yet solved. How on earth did Whichelo’s will, leaving you this fortune, come to be in the safe in Château d’Uzerche, in the Basses Alpes? When did Whichelo die?”
“Four months ago. The lawyers distinctly remember him making a will, but he had never returned it to them, and, since his death, they had been trying to find it. They even advertised for it.”
“To whom would his fortune have gone, had he died intestate?” I inquired suddenly.
“To his younger brother, Henry. From what the lawyers tell me, this brother of his must be a peculiar man. His life appears to be a mystery. He is, however, known to be intimate with your friend, Sir Charles Thorold. Sir Charles and he were in Mexico together ten years ago, the lawyers tell me, and were there again about three years ago.”