oor was ajar. I
opened it wider. Your aunt sat upon the floor of the hall crying--"

"Yes?"

"I spoke of passing and seeing the door ajar. She recognized me as one
of the servants and begged me to call a taxi. I assisted her to the
taxi and went back, having only pretended to lock the door."

"And having disposed of her," supplied Carl, "you flew up the stairs,
applied the key made from the impression--and stole the paper?"

"Yes."

"Beautiful!" said Carl softly. "How cleverly you tricked me!"

Themar shrugged.

"It was very simple."

Carl smiled.

"Where is the paper now?" he inquired.

Themar's face darkened.

"When later I looked in the pocket of my coat," he admitted, "the paper
had disappeared utterly. Nor have I found it since. It is a very
great mystery--"

"Ah!" said Carl. "So," he mused, "as long as the paper was in my
possession, my life was safe, for you must watch me to find it.
Therefore I was not poisoned or stabbed or shot at during your original
ten days of service. Later, even though you could not lay your own
hands upon the paper, things began to happen. Knowing what I did, I
had lived too long as it was."

"Yes."

"Suppose you begin at the beginning--and tell me just what you know."

It was a halting, nervous tale poorly told. Carl, with his fastidious
respect for a careful array of facts, found it trying. By a word here
or a sentence there, he twisted the mass of imperfect information into
conformity and pieced it out with knowledge of his own.

"So," said he coldly, "you thought to stab me the night of the storm
and stabbed Poynter. Fool! Why," he added curtly, "did you later spy
upon my cousin's camp when Tregar had expressly forbidden it?"

It was an unexpected question. Themar flushed uncomfortably. Carl had
a way of reading between the lines that was exceedingly disconcerting.
His information, he said at length after an interval of marked
hesitancy, had been too meager. He had listened at the door once when
the Baron had spoken of Miss Westfall to his secretary. A housemaid
had frightened him away and he had bolted upstairs--to attend to
something else while they were both safely occupied. Rather than work
blindly as he needs must if he knew no more, he had sought to add to
his information by spying on her camp.

It was unconvincing.

"So," said Carl keenly, "Baron Tregar does not trust you!"

Themar's lip curled.

"The Baron knew of your ten days