"It is all fair and above board.

I swear it is." "Is it ?" "It is--I swear it is.

He sent me.

Do you doubt me ?" he added with undisguised eagerness.
Claude was about to say, with no politeness at all, that he did, and to repeat his refusal in stronger terms, when his ear caught the same sound which had revealed so much to him a few minutes earlier at the foot of the stairs.

It came more faintly this time, deadened by the closed door of the staircase, but to his enlightened senses it proclaimed so clearly what it was--the echo of a cracked, shrill voice, of a laugh insane, uncanny, elfish--that he trembled lest Louis should hear it also and gain the clue.