“Come outside,” he said softly. “I want to speak to you.”
The two men went out together through the window. When they had gone a sufficient distance from the house, Anthony drew from his pocket the scrap of paper that Boris had given him that morning.
“Look here,” he said. “Did you drop this?”
Lemoine took it and examined it with some interest.
“No,” he said. ‘I have never seen it before. Why?”
“Quite sure?”
“Absolutely sure, Monsieur.”
“That’s very odd.”
He repeated to Lemoine what Boris had said. The other listened with close attention.
“No, I did not drop it. You say he found it in that clump of trees?”
“Well, I assumed so, but he did not actually say so.”
“It is just possible that it might have fluttered out of M. Isaacstein’s suit-case. Question Boris again.” He handed the paper back to Anthony. After a minute or two he said: “What exactly do you know of this man Boris?”
Anthony shrugged his shoulders.
“I understood he was the late Prince Michael’s trusted servant.”
“It may be so, but make it your business to find out. Ask some one who knows, such as the Baron Lolopretjzyl. Perhaps this man was engaged but a few weeks ago. For myself, I have believed him honest. But who knows? King Victor is quite capable of making himself into a trusted servant at a moment’s notice.”
“Do you really think”
Lemoine interrupted him.
“I will be quite frank. With me, King Victor is an obsession. I see him everywhere. At this moment even I ask myself—this man who is talking to me, this M. Cade, is he, perhaps, King Victor?”
“Good Lord,” said Anthony, “you have got it badly.”
“What do I care for the diamond? For the discovery of the murderer of Prince Michael? I leave those affairs to my colleague of Scotland Yard whose business it is. Me, I am in England for one purpose, and one purpose only, to capture King Victor and to capture him red-handed. Nothing else matters.”
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