The master of twenty-five years was gone.
"In a mask ?" "Yes, Madame." "And the motive ?" "Not robbery, since nothing is disturbed about the hotel save in monsieur's library.

The drawers have all been pulled out." With a sharp cry she crossed the corridor and entered the library.

The open drawers spoke dumbly but surely.
"Gone!" she whispered.

"We are all lost! He was fortunate in dying." Terror and fright vanished from her face and her eyes, leaving the one impassive and the other cold.

She returned to the body and the look she cast on it was without pity or regret.