“Naturally,” said the innocent Duchess. Nobody would suspect the highly respected Contraras of telling a deliberate lie.
Outside the Palace, the crowd had thinned, but Moreno and Violet Hargrave still waited. Midnight had struck and all was quiet. There were no signs that heralded the happening of a tragedy. A few belated arrivals passed through to the Palace. The crowd began to melt away.
And then there was a little stir. A carriage drove up outside the Palace doors. Two men and a woman stepped into it, the woman was in evening dress.
The carriage passed the two watchers. Mrs Hargrave peered into the slowly-moving vehicle.
“Valerie Delmonte,” she whispered excitedly. “There is a man sitting beside her, one of those two men I noticed driving in—don’t you remember I said they looked people of importance, and you said you did not know them from Adam. What does it mean? Valerie alone with those men?”
“It looks as if the coup had failed,” replied Moreno quietly. “I should say that Valerie has been caught, and those two men are members of the police.”
Mrs Hargrave grew a little hysterical. “Thank God, it was not myself,” she added, after a pause. “I am glad it was not you.”
Moreno was about to reply when another carriage drove through, the occupant of which was Contraras. His tall form seemed huddled up; he was evidently in a state of extreme dejection.
Moreno tucked Mrs Hargrave’s arm under his own.
“Come along! Evidently the coup has failed; the police have been one too many for us. Valerie Delmonte going away with those two men, poor old Contraras huddled up in that carriage, his attitude expressing that all is lost, at any rate, for the moment! We have nothing to wait for. We shall hear all about it to-morrow.”