“Tell me one thing, Ella,” I exclaimed, after a pause. “Have you any idea whether Dudley had any occupation?”
“Occupation? I always understood he had enough money to be independent.”
Then taking from my vest pocket the object I had picked up from among the contents of the dead man’s pockets displayed on the table in the Coroners’s Court, I held it up to her, saying seriously,—
“Now, tell me truthfully, Ella, have you ever seen this in Dudley’s possession?”
She glanced at it for an instant, holding her breath, as across her blanched countenance there passed an expression of bewildered amazement.
The object I held beneath her gaze was insignificant in itself, merely a small brass seal, but it bore the Warnham arms in exact imitation of the cut amethyst worn by the Earl. It was the seal which had been used to manufacture the duplicate of the envelope containing England’s secret alliance with Germany.
The suddenness with which I had produced it startled and nonplussed her. As I transfixed her blue eyes with my keen, suspicious gaze, her white lips moved, but no sound fell from them. Embarrassment held her dumb.