Moreno appeared to accept the explanation. Jaques seemed, then, to have paid her handsomely for her services. But evidently he had not paid her enough, or she would not have trafficked with Guy Rossett and sold him important secrets.
It was some little time before he spoke again, and then he played his trump card.
He left the personal question altogether, and spoke of the affairs of the brotherhood.
“There must be traitors amongst us,” he said presently, “although I do not think they are to be found in Spain—so many things have leaked out.”
“Yes.” She spoke very quickly. “There was the failure of poor Valerie Delmonte. Do you think there was treachery there?”
“I rather doubt it,” answered Moreno easily. “My theory has always been that she drew suspicion on herself by her inexperience, her amateurish methods, her suspicious movements when she got inside the Palace. If the job had been entrusted to me, with my steady nerves, I think I should have been successful. I boasted as much to Contraras, and I suppose that is the reason he has given me this job.”
Violet was silent. Moreno went on smoothly.
“But with regard to that affair of Guy Rossett, the information he got which, for the moment, frustrated our plans—that was clearly the work of a traitor. That happened just before I came on the scene, but Luçue has told me all about it.”
He was looking at her very steadfastly. She was trying to avoid his gaze, but those dark, brilliant eyes of his drew her lighter ones with a certain mesmeric power.
She was not acting well to-night, he thought. There crept into her troubled glance a shadow of fear. She tried to speak lightly, indifferently, but her voice broke and faltered, in spite of her efforts at self-control.