Meanwhile Olga was speaking to the man.
"The first thing you have to confess," she said, "is about Miss Denham. Where is she?"
"With Mr. Morley."
Giles uttered an exclamation.
"What has he got to do with her?"
"I don't know.
He came up to town yesterday evening."
"About nine or ten?" asked Giles quickly. He remembered his feeling of being watched at the Liverpool Street Station.
"Yes," assented Dane, "he came up to see me.
He said that he had a message for Miss Denham from her father.
Of course I thought then that Denham was really her father.
I asked Morley why he did not deliver the message himself, for he knew that Miss Denham had come to town with the Princess Karacsay."
"How the deuce did he know that?" wondered Giles.
"Well, you see, sir, Mr. Morley was a detective at one time, and he always finds out what he desires."
"True enough," put in Steel, "Joe Bart is very clever."
"He appears to have been extremely so in this case," said Giles dryly.
"Morley told me," continued Mark, "that Miss Denham knew he suspected her of the murder, and she would not let him see her.
If she knew he had come to look her up that she would run away thinking he came to have her arrested.
He asked me to tell her to come to a rendezvous near the Abbey without mentioning his name.
I thought this was reasonable enough, and wrote a letter."
"And I went with Anne," said Olga. "Where did you go?"
"When you left us I told her that Morley had a message from her father.
She said nothing to me denying the relationship, but she was afraid of Morley.
I told her that he had promised not to do her any harm.
She was still doubtful.
Then Morley appeared.
He had been close at hand, and he explained that Denham was very ill. He wished to see Miss Denham and make reparation for his wickedness.
There was no time to be lost, Morley said, and he asked her to come at once.
She hesitated for a time, and then went with Morley.
She told me to wait till the Princess Olga came back and tell her this."
"Why did you not?"
"Because Morley whispered that I was not to do so.
I went away in another direction."
"Then why do you tell now?" asked Ware bluntly.
"I wish to be revenged on Denham," said Dane fiercely. "He treated me like a dog, and he shall be bitten by me.
Curse him!"
Olga walked to the door.
"I shall go now," she said, seeing that Dane was becoming excited and fearing a scene. "You can tell Mr. Steel and Mr. Ware everything, Mark.
When Denham is caught and Anne is free, you shall come to Vienna with me.
My father shall take you into his service," and with this she held out her hand to him in a regal manner.
Dane kissed it as though it had been the hand of a queen, and when she was out of the room, turned to the two men with a shining face.
"I am ready to tell you everything," he said.
"And betray those who have done you a kindness," muttered Steel. "You would not be an Irish-American if you didn't.
I know the type."
Quite unaware of this uncomplimentary speech, Dane glanced into a near mirror and ran his slim hand through his hair.
He cast such a complacent look at his reflection that Giles could not forbear a smile.
The man was a compound of treachery, courage, and vanity.
He had some virtues and not a few vices, and was one of those irresponsible creatures who develop into Anarchists.
But that the Scarlet Cross Society had attracted his talents in the direction of a kind of coast piracy, he would without doubt have been employed in blowing up kings or public buildings.
Giles thought with a grim smile that if Olga took this creature to Austria, Prince Karacsay would have some work to keep him in order.