infer them; Mr. Harleston arranged them."

She turned to Harleston with a mocking smile.

"I am listening, monsieur," she inflected. "What is it you, or rather
America, would of me?"

"The letter you have in your possession," said Harleston.

"The letter!" she marvelled. "Why, Mr. Harleston, you know quite well
that I never had the Clephane letter."

"Very true; we have the Clephane letter, as you style it; and we have
also a _translation_. What we want from you is the letter that Captain
Snodgrass took from his mail box at the Rataplan this afternoon, and
gave to you in the taxi on the way to the Chateau."

She smiled incredulously.

"Absurd, sir!" she replied. "Surely you are not serious!"

"Let me be entirely specific," he returned "I'll put all my cards on the
table and play them open."

"Double dummy, by all means!" she laughed, perching her lithe length on
the arm of a chair, one slender foot swinging slowly back and forth.
"Your play, monsieur."

"There is no need to go back farther than this morning," he observed.
"We knew that you were to meet Captain Snodgrass and lunch with him at
one o'clock at the Rataplan. Your man Marston, when he visited Mr.
Carpenter this morning, managed inadvertently to furnish the key-word of
the Clephane letter. Do you see whither your meeting with Snodgrass, an
ex-officer of the Army, in view of the translation of the letter leads,
Madeline? Marston, I might remark, was quickly apprehended; if he made a
copy of the letter, he had no opportunity to use it. Well, you went to
the Rataplan with Snodgrass--every movement you two made, from the time
you joined Snodgrass at the Chateau until I myself put you in my cab
when you returned to the hotel, was observed by numerous and competent
shadows. We were convinced that you were to receive the formula--"

"What formula, Guy?"

"The formula mentioned in the Clephane letter," he explained; "which
formula you received from Snodgrass during the ride back from the
Rataplan to the Chateau. He received it there by post, and got it from
his box as you were leaving. He even was foolish enough to open the
original envelope, and to put the one enclosed, unopened in his pocket.
You immediately took a taxi for the Chateau. My taxi was close behind
yours; and I caught you as you were alighting and hurried you off to--"

"This pleasant appointment!" she laughed. "I suppose, Guy, you want the
envelope and contents--which you assume Captain